Another Way of Doing Things
by Harlequin de Rustre
Summary: There have been many tales of Louise getting a different familiar, but nothing quite like this.  Warning! Black humor and end note rants!
1. Something Wicked This Way Is

Alright peeps, this yet another new fandom I'm writing for. Whilst I've recently got into the groove with Witchblade and Queen's Blade, I'd thought I'd do a more mainstream manga/anime (And, yes, I know _about_ the book series; feel free to fill me in slash beat me over the head with the wrote scripts and data.).

I'm also coming back to one of my fave fandoms, Diablo, in lieu of the upcoming game and the fact that, quite frankly, I'm more than a little peeved that certain things are happening with it (I mean, seriously: Cain being a distant relative of Adria(even as a surrogate)? And what's with this raping of canon? Gawd, keep it simple, dammit. Knaak has A LOT to answer for with his ruining of both the worlds of Warcraft and Diablo. Fucking turd sandwich(and I'd used to _like_ his material! Bought his precious manga trilogy, bought his precious books, and read his other stuff avidly!). Now I'm liking the other Diablo writers a lot more (Mel Odom and that Christie chick, particularly). Blizzard's now filled up to the brim with sellout cunts, thanks in no small part to Activision buying them out and shitting on their way of doing things (Please don't debunk that statement, I live in the vain hope that they aren't total sellouts yet).

Okay, shit, you didn't come here to read my whiny diatribe about the woes of humanity via my biased wailing, obviously.

So let's get this shiz rolling after a brief disclaimer:

**I do not own, profit from, or otherwise have rights to the Diablo franchise or Zero no Tsukaima, manga or anime. I also don't profit from this- unless I'm being funded by fans to work. Which I'm not. So on with the show.**

**~A~**

The diminuitive figure of a young magic user stood in front of the congregation, nervously drawing her breath from between her tight lips. She adjusted her stance and prepared to work what she hoped to be effective magic.

Through the same quivering lips, she recited the familiar summons:

_**Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers,**_

_**Heed my Summoning**_

_**And bring forth my Familiar!**_

**~W~**

Walking home from school, Hiraga Saito cheerfully bitched about his normal life. Conveniently for him, a blaringly obvious magical array glowed into existence in front of him, which he gleefully ran up to in exultation of what had to be Fate's most fantastic blunder to date.

"Awesome…!" the vacuous boy exclaimed, "I wonder what it could be…?"

With no caution whatsoever-

-as is common of people encountering strange objects they don't understand, if only in B-rated horror movies produced by the generic film people, amateur and professional, the last thought on said people's minds being a sensible plot wherein your token passerby would _not_ poke the random disgusting glob of space goo with a stick, would _not_ attempt to hold a conversation with an obviously murderous/undead acquaintance from less than three paces away without some kind of barrier between them, would _not_ willingly have sex with the strangely overconfident, predatory wo-/man, would _not_ choose to go into the decrepit old house that consistently makes sounds that resemble something awfully like terrified screams/inhuman noises, would _not_ bother the obvious angry/hungry/territorial whatchmacallit-

the Japanese teenage trotted up to the portal and put his hands up against it.

… did we mention that your token passerby would also not go touch some randomly luminescent object/animal/humanoid/loved one/friend/anomaly- at least not before calling some sort authority figure (more often than not being one's hairy uncle or girlfriend (this never works the other way around, unless it's a time before women started wearing pants and questioning men's authority and their ability to be meatshields for them and the children)?

"This… looks like some sort of weird gateway…" the boy said, obviously not knowing what he's talking about (I mean, really, unless you know what relation uruz and kaunan or ehwaz and mannaz have, or whether Futhork and Marcoman scripts will conflict with each other or enhance the intended effect, you're nowhere close to even guessing what the hell the pentacle arrangement is supposed to do. For all you know, it could spawn a demon, or explode, or summon your Mum back from Detroit, or give you a terminal case of really bad gas, thereby ruining your laughably tentative social life.).

"It doesn't seem particularly dangerous," he observed, Fate be cursed for not allowing for the otherworldly portal to at least give an unpleasant shock to one's nether regions (a notably potent deterrent for all errant lads up to no good). Groping the mysterious force further, he said completely to himself "Maybe I'll take a peek inside."

Then came the roar "Random Mad Bicycle!"

Fate, having realized it's fantastic blunder in this day and age, quickly rectified by inspiring a local gajin headcase to go on a madcap cycling spree- those immediately in his vicinity beware.

Impressively vaulting over a nearby residential wall via handy wheelie tricks, the frothing looper came down hard on the conveniently positioned boychild, twisted the bike off away from the portal (Fate releases a second held breath at the close call, sparing a slightly less unspeakable series of events from happening), and sped off to inevitably crash into a wall, ridding the world of yet another psychopathic reject.

Meanwhile, in the disturbingly bleak Underworld, a scruffy, overweight dandy sneezed. Unperturbed, he resumed torturing the already depressed denizens of the afterlife with his legendarily off-pitch wailing.

Back in the mortal world of Earth, Saito, the inconceivably unfortunate boy (Fate be thanked), lay in a puddle of snot and urine quivering. It should be noted that the bike played havoc on the lower part of his spine, so much so he would never walk again, and, with his peevish personality, he would die alone without the convenient skirt to cling to by an unbreakable bond.

As his sight faded into blackness, Saito turned his gaze to the seriously awesome thing that he'd had the fortune to find but never enter as it winked out of sight, shifting over into another reality in the hopes of quickly seizing a more worthy prize – the portal was as sentient as Fate was, and it had a family life with a wife-portal and kid-portals. It's pay rode on delivering top notch packages to its customers, the summoners. If this jerkoff, who had heinously sexually molested it, had passed through, the Powers That Be would have fired the portal and it would be many more months before the portal could reshape and become the magic circle for the numerous mouth-rapings of more than thirty virginal schoolgirls by a ten year old pervert. The horror.

**~O~**

In another reality, energy raged from an increasingly unstable mountainous gem deep inside a cavernous mountain. Also inside this mountain, nearby, were an assortment of buff humans, a buffer energy being, and the oozing vomit-caked remains of what looked to be the world's most hideous man-jellyfish.

The sexy energy being- also known as an angel- made an arcane magical motion with his "hand" and opened a blood red vortex leading to God only knows where.

"**Quickly, through the portal!**"

After facing down the weird forces of demonic forces and the horrific tribulations of being in a love polygon with people who could rip your head off in a dozen ways without breaking a nail, the heroes paused in trepidation.

"Uh…"

"Lolwut?"

"I am disturbed by this turn of events."

"It should be green."

"I'm fine with the color, I dunno what you're talking about. Goes nicely with the black."

"It should have been created by a woman. No exceptions."

The manly angel sagged a little. At the back of the pack, the silent minority made a sound of disgust.

Pushing aside the assorted Band of Buttheads, a wizened, cloaked man made his way to the front. "Forgive them, Tyrael, they're not intimate with the workings of superior magic."

He slowly and confidently made his way to the portal. "I'm sure nothing malicious lies beyond this portal, especially having been provided by one of the vaunted angels, especially one who is a sympathizer for the… children..." The angel visibly flinched at the less than subtle hint.

The white haired man paused a few paces away from the sanguine doorway, his tone of voice changing sharply. "If this shunts me off into strange lands that I have no way of naturally escaping and returning to my homeland- I'm Planewalking back and ripping your head off, the Balance be damned."

The champion of humanity sighed. "**There is no incentive or logic to such an act; be assured, I hold no ill will.**"

Smiling cleverly, the cloaked man chuckled, his tenor leveling again. "An angel's word is enough for me. Goodbye, good friend."

He continued to the gate without further delay.

And, just then, as he was right on top of the red vortex, a garishly sparkling pentacle flared into this existence. Too late to stop, he put his boot through it. There was a slight hitch in his step, but it seemed the portal was one of the forcible variety and the wisest of the assorted heroes was pulled through completely.

Suffice to say, the steely company froze in equal parts fear and puzzlement. Mostly puzzlement, in the case of the angel.

**~D~**

On the inside of the now gleefully out-of-danger-of-unemployment portal, the aged warrior sighed in irritation. "Well, this is one for the books. An angel assuring nothing bad is going to happen and then something bad happens."

He strode through the dark hallway, noting the lack of a way back.

"I'm going to eat someone for this," the grim man muttered, "Pull the bones from their carcass… rape their soul… yes…"

Still walking through the seemingly endless darkness, his murderous irritation ceased for a moment, giving way to ponderance.

"Could this be one of the fantastic pocket universes? A great mage's personal artificial reality?"

He stopped briefly. A flicker of trepidation briefly crossed his face. Then he resumed his probably pointless journey.

"Nah; no self-respecting sorcerer would create an array that fragile- or that pink!"

A few minutes passed through the blackness, and then came a loud, piercing voice. Due to the effects of magic linguistics transcending universal barriers of spacetime, the depth and sex of the voice were totally obliterated in their passage.

The inflection, however, remained, and this was enough to give the grumpy old man an idea of who was behind this.

As the quavering vocalizations carried through the abyss, the acerbic champion of his people made another noise voicing his distaste. "Perfect, I'm the summons of an abject novice. Well," he smirked, pulling his hood over his head, "time to put on the usual face."

Cackles of mad glee sounded in the dark until yet another pentacle swallowed the disturbing man up.

**~A~**

A fume of noxious smoke arose from the open ground, a glow from within indicating a successful summons.

As the smoke cleared the congregation began to shift and remark amongst its members.

There stood hunched a naively grinning senile old man. "Hello... I think I've gotten lost on my way to the market…"

**~W~**

Okay, yeah, I not only did a crossover, but did a rather valid, though gruesome [-ly funny] explanation of why "Saito-kun"/"Partner/"Saitooooo~!"/"Commoner" did not end up in Hilkegenia.

No, I'm not sorry for that. Quite frankly, most people writing this sorta thing just say "Hey, it just happened for no reason at random and ended up with my favorite character *insert vacuous chortling*". I'm not like that; I prefer a perfectly sane way of explaining shit (in the loosest definition of "sane", if I can manage).

Now, I wasn't really intending to make this first bit humorous at all, but the imagery of the Random Mad Bicycle was a morsel I couldn't bear to deprive my audience (primarily me, myself, and I) of. And I poked a bit of fun at my favorite universe, so don't come bitching about favoritism.

I've found that the more humor I have injected into something, the more like it is that I hate the butt of said humor. And I'm kinda pissed at both sides of this matter, even though I'm a huge fan of one of those sides.

I'm sure you guys already have an idea what I'm pissed about with Diablo, but here's some brief insight into why I'm more than a little, uh, miffed at "Familiar of Zero":

I don't like how things have turned out, I don't like some of the characters, primarily that asshole primadonna, Saito, and I don't like the out-of-the-blue name for the opposition, which seems like a rip off on the whole "Hueco Mundo, land of the somehow Spanish-acquainted evil Japanese people" motif(although swap out "Hueco Mundo" with "Albion" and "Japanese" with "Vaguely Northwestern European"), although thankfully it has a tad less members who dress like flamboyantly gay drag queens (come on, it's not exactly subtle; Bleach's a shonen manga, for crissakes).

Sweet Jesus, I wanna throttle the main writers for that; it drives me nuts that a perfectly well set up world of interesting politics and intrigue has to be kisboshed and condescendingly simplified with the injection of the whiniest roster of characters this side of My Immortal. And I've read a huge amount of promising, but ultimately craptastic, manga.

However, I won't beat a dead horse and keep on lambasting the unfortunate Saito-kun; that's what I have the other wastes of space for (don't worry, I don't hate even half of the characters; Kirche, for example, is nicely consistent, a good foil, and amazingly sane for this usually fantastically retarded world (thanks to Saito and his mangina periods). Rest assured that I will not jump the shark with the mockery, much less jump the shark, come back, shoot it in the balls, rape it, eat its flesh, consume its soul, mount its head on the wall… aaand then do the same thing to twelve more fucking sharks just to be safe (I credit Nostalgia Critic for his brilliance (and yes, he definitely owns it, even with intellectual property aside)).

Oh, and I'm gonna do an omake, because I'm a hip wapanese fan fiction writer like that.

Omake: 

The heroic group minus one stood there in silence. Then the big[gest] one with the axe coughed.

"Well I certainly didn't see that coming," the native Harrogathi warrior commented.

The slightly-less-big-but-still-bigger-the-rest one smirked in self-justified satisfaction. "Well, that's less honor to be shared, am I right? Guy was a tool, anyways."

The shortest of the men with the longest hair sniffed, his rough carroty locks shifting unnaturally. "He was certainly one of the less amicable of this group, but he pulled his weight; I'm sure you couldn't come up with such good battle plans, Aemus-"

Miffed, the axeman coughed again, earning a glare from the sympathetic druid. "Well, yes, I'm sure your main tactic of being the first in the charge with the contingency plan of our lordly arseface of a paladin patching up your scratched bum was a fine way of dealing with the hordes of demons- as a last resort!"

At this point, the tan slut of the group interjected. "All he did was boss us around. 'Elana do this, Elana do that-"

"'Elana, quit fucking the manwhore and keep the minions of Duriel from taking the South gate.' Yeah, I was there for some of those."

The sorceress whirled upon the red haired snarker, ready to maim certain delicate organs.

"He disrespected my order's uniform-"

"He said you needed more armor than a shirt that barely even covered your tits and a glorified girdle with a bit of brass on it. He also didn't make any comments about your other less helpful traits when it didn't merit serious discussion. Unlike Aemus, he didn't heap unsolicited advice on anyone."

"He heaped it on me," the noticeably sniffy Zakarumite whined, "Such a disgrace. A bone picker pagan like him criticizing me."

"Of course it had nothing to do with you irritating him with accusations like that, I'm sure…"

The biggest of the women stepped forward. "He was a burden to us all; his plans fell apart constantly and he endangered us all while he reaped the rewards uncountable times. He's worse than the other overbearing man of our collaboration."

The axeman stepped forward to give argument, but a glare from the blonde heroine silenced any planned dissent.

Again, the druid riposted. "All those plans that 'fell apart' were due to you or Elana or the both of you deciding that they were not worth being a part of and acting on your own 'natural brilliance'. At least Aemus has the discipline and capability of finding reason, even if he makes a big noise about it, and at least Bannargast has fought enough to crap about it after the battle is over."

The paladin and the barbarian didn't know whether to decide to feel insulted or to puff up with some amount of pride.

Unable to hold her silence any longer, the last member of the group screamed in frustration. "Who fucking cares!"

The pale, violent woman stomped up to the nervous angel and grabbed him by the breastplate. She tugged Tyrael down until his hood was at eye level. "Get him back, oh glorious crusader," the leather clad killer began, menace creeping into her disturbingly soft voice, "or I will do what he promised long before he has the chance to show up. And I promise worse to go with it."

Aemus started toward the enraged Viz'Jaqtar woman. "Don't! He's the great-"

"I don't give a flying SHIT about his greatness!" she screeched, "I give a shit about the only good fuck of this fucking fucklot!"

"You-" the blonde began.

"You _what_?" the mage killer quickly fired back, "'Made love to the greatest of all true warriors'? Yeah, like, once. And I'm glad you're stepping up, because I finally can get this crap off my chest."

Releasing the [quite frankly scared] angel, the assassin faced the amazon. "You, your cunnilingus sucks. And your strapped-on cock hurts worse than your fucking creepy pillow talk. Ew, you sick pervert."

Aemus, easily the most innocent of the group, became shocked at this revelation of the warrior woman's desire for the feminine sex, something that was glaringly obvious to everyone but him. "Yarezna? You…?"

"OH DON'T GET ME STARTED ON _YOU_," the ebon-haired champion bellowed, "You're such a weak fuck, it's childish. Sure, the whole 'I'm a shut-in little altar boy, hear me mewl like a pup' turns me on more than the woman-lover here, but your fucking feels like you're apologizing for your cock! I hate you more than her, you fucking little tease!"

The dark skinned warrior of the Zakarum has the grace to blush and looked away.

Bannargast began to voice his opinion again "I-"

"You're too small."

The self-proclaimed champion of manliness sagged terribly.

Finally vented of the crest of her rage, she turned back to deal with Tyrael, who was just starting to conspicuously inch away, even though he floated silently on his "beyond real" wing-tendrils.

"Get him back," she growled, "or I will decide to rape you to death, then rip off your head, and _then_ everything else."

Tyrael felt the urge to point out his being made out of energy hotter than any mortal flame, but seeing at this woman was able to touch him with so much as singing her pale flesh, much less being able to force him down with her bare hands, he felt that the point would be moot (and because of that feared for his divine celibacy).

The druid stepped forward to put in his two ments after much silence. "Well, I could-"

Turning whilst firmly holding on the champion of humanity, she looked at him with narrowed eyes. "I know what you do with your wolf form when you think no one's looking"

The red haired man paled. "Right, then, that's three votes for getting him back," the lycanthrope said, clapping his hands once.

"Er-"

The assassin held Tyrael close enough that she almost had her face in his cowl. "Are you saying you like the idea of me fucking you until your endless life gives out?"

"Uh…"

"Well then it's three votes. And we're not moving off this pile until I see results."

The archangel began to shiver with dread.

*Done*

So, yeah, it's a little more than half the size of the actual chapter. Wow, I'm such a badass for writing an omake that's almost as long as the relevant plot. Jebus.

Just to clarify on some lines you may be confused about (in the event you either have a computer your can easily jump up and down a page with or enough time on your mobile device to waste half a minute creeping up the page (even with an iPod), here's the owners of the respective comments at the end of the scene in Mount Arreat, in order:

Druid

Barbarian

Paladin

Sorceress

Assassin

Amazon

I'm sure the deduction following these clues gives us a glimpse at the identity of the main character from Diablo II, somehow.

If you think it's Deckard Cain, you're an ass- but I like how you think.

For fans of my original Diablo fic, do not worry about me updating that- I need to clear off a few cobwebs, redo some wordings, and I'll finish the second chappie up within a couple days (give or take. Shit happens, okay?)

Also, don't expect me to do omakes like this for every chapter (though I am tempted). Remember at the end of the beginning of the endnotes? Yeah, it's like that.

Oh, and I'll probably not post this until it's gotten well past Halloween, even though I'm finished with this chapter before even the second half of September. Yeah, I'm smooth.

And just so you don't forget:

**YOU'VE READ THE DAMN STORY SO FUCKING REVIEW IT NOW, BITCHES! **

**ALL YOU RANDOM READERS THAT AREN'T MEMBERS: I ACCEPT ANONYMOUS REVIEWS. **I prefer reviews I can reply privately to so I don't aggravatingly waste time posting the reply in my author's notes when I could be actively writing awesomely epic material**, BUT STILL**

**SO CLICK! CLICK THE DAMN BUTTON AND RAPE YOUR KEYBOARD BEFORE I HUNT YOU DOWN AND FORCIBLY SPOONFEED YOU FROZEN MOLASSES! **


	2. Hello, Hello, Hello, How Low

Alright, off the cuff and fresh from ending the pilot chapter, although this probably won't see the light of another person's computer until next July.

No real need for disclaimers except on sites where I need to post the chapters individually, but, fuck, I'll do it if someone whines on here (FF).

Also, I'd like to add briefly that, *

Okay, to explain the stub right there with the asterisk (that should also be right there), I'd have to say the bit I'd wanted to "add briefly" took on a life of its own. I'm talking an extensive rant about two full pages long that stands on par with one of Obama's bloviations for utter verbosity, although it makes a crapload more sense and doesn't flinch away from the details. Instead of boring you here with the discussion, I'll bore you at the end of the chapter. Just for that rant, this chapter's gonna be longer than the last.

So yeah. I'm done boring you with the details… for now.

On with the show!... fic… thing… thingy… yeah…

**~A~**

"Hello? I think I've gotten lost on the way to the market."

Time seemed to momentarily stop in the silence following the summon's rather blithe statement.

The foremost member of the congregation, a diminutive girl spoke. "Who… are you?"

The hooded old man's smile didn't fall- in fact, if anything, it broadened as if he'd just heard a good joke.

"Me? Everyone knows who I am," he said, as if stating some universal truth, "I'm old man Ludo- Ludoviccus… Reamosgh... eh, the… third. Yes, the third."

The teenage girl seemed to become incensed at this. "I'm not asking your name!" she snapped, "Why did a commoner…"

The girl paused in mild confusion, and then comprehension appeared on her face. In quick succession, she took on a rather ugly demeanor.

"…Don't tell me—" she began, hesistant, "This can't be right, you can't be—"

And it was at that point the assorted crowd of people, made up of mainly youths such as her, erupted into jeers at the nervous girl's expense. It should be noted that it became evident that this girl's moniker was "Louise the Zero", a name that held some kind of relevance with the summons done at that moment.

The old man's hand stopped hovering at the opening in his cloak, then choosing to occupy it with clasping the other one in a typically elderly way.

Attempting to save face, she points at the old man, facing the crowd, saying "This thing can't possibly be my familiar! This is a mistake! I just messed up a little!"

A tan colleague at the front of the crowd made another mocking jab at the girl, followed by the girl's exclamation that she would "fix" whatever "this" was supposed to be.

Finally having enough, a cloaked man with a significantly bald pate stepped forward. "Everyone please be quiet," he loudly commanded. "Miss Valliere."

"Mister Colbert," the short girl exclaimed.

"This is a holy ritual of summoning," the scholarly man began.

"But…"

Unperturbed, the newly named Colbert continued. "And there will be no such things as 'fixing it' allowed."

"That's…"

The man continued to willfully ignore the fledgeling mage's dissent. "You have called him to service, therefore he shall be you familiar."

The girl blushed in embarrassment and sagged slightly.

"Please, continue with the ritual."

"… Yes, sir," she said, defeated.

Louise the Zero turned to the old man, quivering with indignation, but poised. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a commoner like you."

"Eh?" was all the elderly man had to say.

The girl coughed, choking down a sob. "You better be thankful."

Louise approached the old man quickly, brandishing the wand in her right hand. She prodded the concealed forehead of the man under the hood, magic light flaring at the touch. "Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers,"

If she wasn't looking off center in embarrassment, she would have caught the intent expression upon the man's briefly revealed face.

"Grant you blessings upon this creature," she reached forward, grasping the compliant old man's head, "And bind it as my Familiar."

"Why'd you have to be so old?" she muttered half to herself, half to the old man.

She pressed her lips to his in a kiss. A shiver ran through her when the man's lips very briefly contorted in a frightfully pleasant way before loosening completely.

"Ugh," she softly groused, "my first kiss, gone."

The old man's smile seemed to contort into a clever leer, but Louise couldn't tell with the upper part of his face concealed. A passing comfort was that she could see that her elderly familiar, old as he was, still had all of his teeth- although the way he bared his too-perfect incisors creeped her out.

Then came back the comments of the crowd. "Amazing… 'Louise the Zero' actually made a contract!"

She whirled back to face the crowd, raising a defiant fist. "I can at least do this much!"

The old man watching all this happen felt his left hand begin to grow hot. He began to shrug it off before remembering his put-on role and began to dance around flailing and yelling. This delay went unnoticed by all but one of the assembly.

"Ah! Ah! Someone get some water! I'm burning! Ah!" The old man made a spectacle of himself, feebly wringing his hand desperately and jumping around in a convincing geriatric fashion.

His summoner stood by testily, showing no concern at all.

"Those are runes," she said, "They are inscribed to mark you as my familiar."

The old man slowed down a tad, although he seemed a bit peeved. "Well, if that's all…"

The bald man made himself known, coming up to grasp the summoned man's hand. Seeming to misinterpret Colbert's intent, the hunched over old man reached forward and enthusiastically shook the scholar's hand.

The bald man gasped in evident pain at the vigor with which the old man's rough grasp smothered his, nearly crushing it, as well as nearly popping his arm out of its socket. "Ow- gracious me, you're a very spry man. I'm here to see your runes, not simply- ERK- greet you."

"Is that so?" the affable old man said, relinquishing his grip on the significantly younger man's hand. Colbert seemed to stagger in sudden relief, but quickly resumed his professional manner.

"Allow me to see your hand, sir."

Still all smiles, the hunched man pulled off the thick glove on his left hand, holding it out to be clearly seen.

The mage scholar gingerly took the man's deceptively powerful hand, observing the runic arrangement on it. "Hm. Seems that it's slow in development. This is actually a good thing, Louise."

Louise, watching the examination intently, seemed to brighten a bit at that. "How so?"

"Well," Colbert said, "Familiar runes normally take a decent period of time to take root. It's not exactly a simple thing, bonding one soul to another. Even with something as mundane as a frog or a horse it tends to take at least a couple of minutes. With something as powerful as an illusionary beast such as a dragon or a griffon, the process can take as long as half a day. From my estimation, the runes should develop roughly overnight. I'll examine this again on the morrow."

Straightening up, Colbert turns to the congregation, announcing the end of the rituals and dismissed the students.

As most of the others left, the tan girl from before approached Louise and her new familiar. "Hi~~"

Her demeanor was relaxed and mockingly patronizing, whilst her tone had a playful, teasing edge to it. "Congratulations Louise. You summoned a mar~~velous familiar."

She simpered softly, nobody in front of her missing the seemingly calculated undulation of her precociously large breasts.

Louise stepped in front of her familiar in a protective stance, shooting the ditz a pointed look. "Kirche, you…"

The taller girl stepped back in a placating, yet still somehow patronizing, manner, interjecting with "Ah~ I don't intend to do anything."

She turned more, adding "For now…"

The tan girl jumped into the air with her silent companion, floating in the hair. "I'll ome and formally greet you some other time. See ya~~" With a playful wave she flew away to wherever she was going.

The old made a noise of interest, remarking "Where I come from, we walked wherever we went. Flying; such a novel idea…"

His new master turned with a swish of her short cloak and her even shorter skirt and began trudging away. "Right, we're going back, too."

The old man sighed pleasantly, following along. "Ah, such a beautiful day. I'd like to see more of this strange place. Flying and familiars and runes. Simply marvelous."

The girl huffed, halfway thankful that her decrepit familiar, who was apparently as strong as an ox, was also wise enough to not comment on her opting for a more plebian way of transportation. Whether this was due to his being pleasantly tactful or being completely senile, she had yet to find out. He seemed to be taking everything alright, so she didn't worry that much about it.

Halfway along the way to her quarters, the old man started to wear on her nerves with his constant comments about the wonderfulness of their surroundings. Grinding her teeth, she growled in frustration and started walking faster, not wanting to think about her future of living with an ancient motormouth.

**~W~**

"I'm getting the feeling you're not from here," Louise said testily.

They were in her room, which she had conveniently to herself, and the Zero was sitting across from her still standing familiar, legs crossed.

"Eh, well, you see…" the old man clumsily began.

"Who is the king of your lands?" Louise demanded.

"Er, well, we didn't have a king, as far as I know…"

"Any kind of ruler or nobles?"

"Ehm, well, we _did_ have a king, but he's dead."

"What kind of use is that? What king?" The feckless mage was beginning to lose the patience she'd somewhat began to regain.

The old man shifted from one foot to the other, seeming pained. His consternated look dissipated, his face(from what Louise could see of it) brightening. "Ah! Yes, it was Leoric! Good King Leoric, ruler of Khanduras! Wonderful, wonderful man. Shame about his son…"

Louise's eyebrow twitched. "Well, that's some kind of headway. Where is this Khanduras-land?"

The old man's lips pursed. "It's been a while…"

"I don't care. Tell me."

"Er~ Uh~"

Louise's face began to darken.

"Ah!"

"Yes? _Yes_?"

"No, that can't be it…"

The mistress slumped back into her chair in frustration, ready to attempt fireballing some answers out of the codger. Her wand hand twitched in anticipation.

The old man straightened up slightly, once again seeming to have remember something. "Right then: Khanduras, east of Westmarch, north of Duncraig and Kingsport. And south of the Ensteig wilderness."

Louise's voice sounded through the hands clasped over her face. "Thrilling."

"Why, yes; very."

"Ugh~"

Sitting up in her chair, Louise pinched the bridge of her nose, inhaled, and then looked at her familiar. "Seeing as you've _finally_ answered my questions, I will answer the one you'd asked earlier about my summoning you and its general importance."

The familiar-man shifted again, this time smoothly, with barely any effort.

The female magic user straightened herself as if she was a proper teacher in a proper classroom. "The summoning determines which type of magic a person will use.

"Fire, Water, Earth, Wind—"

Somewhere, on a different version of Earth, five rather skeevy looking people in matching uniforms (that were ala the Brownshirts, if they ever went to Australia) sneezed in unison. The one black of the male of the group looked offended at this. "Remember team, I'm the leader of this; _I_ do things first."

After which a whole slew of arguments broke out, including over the rather embarrassing incident with the AIDS situation and why the hell they were still doing this when they were knocking on 40.

Back to a more relevant universe not governed by an overbearing Earth goddess with too much time on her hands, Louise continued with her discussion without ever realizing what she had set in motion.

"-and the lost Element of Void.

All magic is intimately related to life."

The old man sensed a wave of fridge logic coming on, as was demonstrated as Louise jumped up energetically from her chair, fists on her hips, proclaiming proudly "And so! Magic users are naturally all…"

The familiar could guess what was coming…

"Nobles!"

In one. The man felt like patting himself on the back, but remembered he was supposed to be hunched over and unable to reach crap less than three inches above his head in front of him. He hummed in acceptance of these 'facts'. "Interesting."

He shuffled to the side a bit. "Is there a way of reversing this, eh, summons? You ought to have something better than me, I believe…"

The girl fixed the man a look (as much as she could whilst staring at the shadowed part of his hood). "Going back to your world isn't possible. 'Servant Summoning' is a one-way spell…"

"I'd thought you were summoning familiars…"

"Same difference!"

"Where I come from, familiars are catalysts of a witch's magic, not simply a servant."

A vein throbs on Louise's head as she begins undoing her brooch and removing her shirt, facing away from him. "How about just thinking about what's to come?

Watching what you say and doing as I tell you isn't really that bad…"

The old man gazed at his mistress coolly. "To bed already? A bit early, is it not?"

"I'm going to sleep and that's the end of it."

The old man fiddled with his hands a bit. "Mind if I use your closet?"

"For what?" Louise said, setting her panties aside as she climbed into bed.

"I'm going to change my clothes myself, I think."

"As long as you don't change into _my_ clothes, I'm fine with it."

Her familiar crept to the small closet, opened it, and closed the door behind him. Cloth rustling soon followed.

After a moment, a thought occurred to the young mage girl. "What would he have to change into?..."

Something scraped and clinked inside the closet, followed by soft mumblings. The mumblings continued as the door opened, then bunch back'd form of Louise's familiar in a loose linen tunic and rough cotton braies shuffled out holding a bundle wrapped up in his cloak of earthy motley. He set this nearby on the floor, then went to sit on the hay laid out for him to rest on.

Louise looked at her new familiar over her covers, noting his wearing an oversized nightcap that fell well over his eyes.

"Why do you wear something like that?"

The aged man chuckled. "Well, the tunic's-"

"Just the hat."

"My cap? Oh, I need my sleep, see, and my eyes are terribly sensitive; I need to cover `em or I'll just keep waking up. And this nice cap does the trick nicely."

"Oh," Louise said softly. Another thought occurred to her.

The small mage-in-training shuffled to sit up. "Um, familiar?"

"Call me Ludo, miss Louise."

"Er…"

"Yes?'

"Can you show me your face?"

Smiling broadly, Ludo sat up and pulled up his cap a bit.

It was a rather hard-looking face, with no real fat or lines made from smiling often to soften it. It was very effectively masculine, but with features that showed cunning, nothing particularly broad or wide. Still, this seemed to be counterbalanced by the man's expression, his dark grey eyes alive with careless mirth. "Good night, mistress."

"Take care of my clothes, you."

"Ludo. I'll get up later tonight; my hearing's a bother for sleeping, too. I need to rest after all this excitement, though. Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs-"

"Please, for the love of Brimir, stop talking."

**~O~**

Well, that's the second chapter. Exciting, yes?

Surprisingly, I finished this the day after the first chapter. I feel special.

As you could probably tell, I'm following the plot and script of the manga. If there's any special, sparkly little bits you want to add from the anime or the light novel series, request to assist me and send me the info. I'm not really holding my breath for anyone to get off his arse to help me, but I'd appreciate it a bit more.

Below is the good long rant I'd mentioned at the beginning. It's not as long as some of my rants that have dedicated journal pages or anything like that, but it's a doozy. It's also extensive amounts of nerd rage. Fits in with the rest of FF dot net, so I'm just Romaning like the Romans in Rome… hopefully in Rome, myself.

***…**although last chapter I crabbed about Richard Knaak's major malfunction with these backstories of his (for instance, the Five Aspects thing in Warcraft TOTALLY ruined the dragons and their mythology. Why can't there be just ONE dragon queen? Why can't there be dragons of every fucking color, with no predeterminate genetic coloration crap, rather than these stringent designations? You tool!).

However, I'm obviously not taking out the less retarded parts of Knaak's canon of Diablo, as is indicated by my reference to his Sin Wars trilogy, which was probably the least stupid of his works, for the most part; Uldyssian has to be the biggest dumbass in the universe (although, seeing as he's an avowed atheist (most likely Knaak's loveable sockpuppet(I'm infinitely more partial to his Warcraft one; Krasus, the red flight's magical manslut who craves peace more than most hippies, yet conflicts his pining for no violence with some of the most disturbingly gruesome spells and tactics I've ever read in a mainstream novel(I'm still in denial about my hipsterness))), I can live with that (just barely)), Lilith should have been infinitely scarier, there should have been a more thorough backstory for Andariel and the rest of the succubus brood, and the super awesome possessing warlock patsy should have gotten a shitload more airtime.

Oh, and the "Sin Wars" trilogy should have been more about the actual war between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells, rather that snippets of that between Uldyssian being a self absorbed attention whore with his "aren't I wonderful" acts of charity to impress his girlfriend *coughitsatrapcough*, Inarius being a vainglorious colostomy bag (although I gotta say his brooding's kinda hot- I'm entirely heterosexual, I swear), and random bits of drama that have no actual relevance (srsly, the morlu knights with their ambushes were near completely invalid in developing the actual frigging PLOT- I mean, the astoundingly creepy Hidden coming after Uldyssian's party was craploads more awesome!). The bits that tided me over all that silliness was the bits with Mendeln, Uldyssian's infinitely smarter brother, and his progress as a follower of Rathma and a tool of Trag'Oul, the rare times when Uldyssian did something for himself (like that fight scene with the assassin sent by Inarius (although it got a little stupid in the extensive narrative at the tail end of the damn thing)), and the adventures of Uldyssian's undead friend.

Okay, you may have lost your way in that block of text in the middle of the paragraph, so I'll refresh your memory: the Sin Wars trilogy should have been mainly about- guess what- the fucking Sin Wars. Especially the beginning of this bizarre, endless fracas, so we can have some actual concrete concept of HOW THE FUCK IT ALL STARTED, for instance, as well as the workings of each side from an intimate perspective, as opposed to dancing around the issue by putting on a dog-and-pony show to distract us at seemingly random information is crapped out on the typewriter to be read in teasing little hints and snippets so nobody can see the fricking fridge logic squarely. Hell, I didn't see the lack of solid thought involved until I was asked to explain the story of Diablo to my sister, BooksandBubblegum. Sweet Christ, the gaping plotholes. Something tells me Blizzards gonna be filling those in in the third game, eventually, even the ones that aren't there- ESPECIALLY THE WHOLE SHITFEST WITH CAIN HAVING A NIECE WHOSE MOTHER IS ADRIA THE WITCH LADY THAT HE DIDN'T SEEM TO KNOW AT ALL IN THE FIRST GAME ("The witch Adria is a mystery [to the people of this town]…"- yeah, _totally_ indicates him covering up something) NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT HE'S SO FUCKING OLD IN THE SECOND GAME THAT PEOPLE THINK HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD AGES AGO (and not particularly via getting maimed to shreds by a gang of angry demons)—AND WE'RE TALKING **THIRTY LONG-ASS YEARS** AFTER THE END OF THE SECOND GAME'S EXPANSION! Yeah, Cain totally had a kid brother born to a woman quite a pack of years older than him. Uh-huh, that kid brother grew up in the home with a fossil for a mother, grew up, and eventually boinked a wench enough to have her shit out a kid at some point after the first decade after Baal's getting his ass thoroughly canned by the league-of-medieval-heroes-with-way-too-many-abilities, thereby giving the unbelievably long-lasting Deckard Cain a niece that's, like, a ninth his age - yep, totally believable.

Okay, for one, how the shit didn't anybody hear about his brother? Cain's supposed to be the onliest little Horadrim sage left in the entire damn world, and this after having well outlasted his comrades, who I doubt all died at an early age. Now, I give you, he still had color in his hair in the first game (red), but he's well into balding in the second game, hunched over, talking like he's an octogenarian, and people are quibbling about how they're crapping their pants over his longevity. He's old, alone in the world, and his main joy in life is telling stories that have more than a grain of truth in them (if what Adria says is anything to go by, amongst her other extremely sage sayings). Even as a surrogate, how is that possible? He's an island, dammit! Hot damn.

Coming to Adria in this situation, lemme say this- you're saying the scary-ass witch that nobody knows about that landed in Tristram when the first helping of shit began to fly at some point before then got knocked up, shat out a baby girl, kept the baby girl hidden away completely effectively to the point where nobody ever knew, not even the ever-insightful Deckard Cain, and somehow this baby child outlives this über-powerful witch mother of hers, who's as wise or wiser than Cain, not to mention infinitely more resourceful, the kid lives through the crazy-ass events of Diablo II with all the demonic invasions and crap, lives through the chaotice aftermath of three decades until the meteor descends, and at which point the daughter of Adria looks like a girl at the very end of her adolescence with all the helplessness of a girl at such an age with maybe a handful of semi-useful powers that could kill a zombie early in the game with the help of the more powerful hero. Okay, are you getting an idea of how insane that sounds, even if a number of these conditions turn out to be different, bogus, or whatever? Let's come back to the part where Cain and Adria didn't know jack shit about the other beyond some shrewd insights in the first game, and there was supposed to be only a few weeks between the end of the first game and the beginning of the second, so I dunno how a strong relationship could form between those two utter strangers enough for Adria to even entrust Cain with looking after her witch-spawn, much less any kind of a surrogate uncle role or simple guardianship. Last I checked, single women with children they worry about enough to hide don't exactly part with their kids too lightly, or let someone as dodgy as Cain near them. That just doesn't make sense.

Now if you think that's nuts, wait `til you get a load of some o' the other stuff- granted, however, plenty of it will make more sense than that particularly dubious backstory. However, shit like that's a real game-changer, so why would anyone want to upset that? Makes no sense at all. Srsly.

Come to think of it, this seems eerily like Blizzard's trying to jump the shark for absolutely no good reason. This spells trouble and a big bowl of bad for the Diablo franchise. Just you wait.

If it turns out that the use of Adria's and Cain's names were used as filler for names Blizzard didn't want revealed yet, I can accept that. Other than that, I feel that shit's gonna get rather ugly in the years ahead, and no amount of money from big corporations is gonna keep that afloat for longer than it can possibly take.

*End*

And that was the rant. Fun, right? I bet you scrolled all the way down without reading a single word of this. Hell, you've probably gone past this to go spam my inbox with "update plz betch", so go die in a hole.

No, there's not gonna be an omake this chapter. I was debating it even as I was writing the last of this, but I'm gonna pass. It just doesn't go.

Oh! And I'll be slipping in more references to random shit, usually without credit, in future chapters, so watch out!

Now, I'd never intended to make this story this blatantly humorous, but the opportunities present themselves abundantly in the plotline of Zero no Tsukaima that I just can't say "No" to them! But it's not gonna be like this for the whole ride- I will, at some point, write more seriously as this story continues and the gags and funnies are lost to the melodramatic BAWWing of Saito pining over Louise and Louise feeling shitty about herself because Saito shows her up by gaining some new fucking power ever ten fucking seconds- that cheap little WHOOOOORE! You cockbucket!- at which point I've gotta let Ludo come in and fix shit that he ain't broke.

Oh, but I'll probably keep on with the Nostalgia Critic references in these end notes if I can help it. Seriously, that guy's the one responsible for keeping me sane during some rough patches in my life.

By the way, if you wanna look up the reference in the end notes last chapter, just search for "Jumping the shark Nostalgia Critic" on YouTube. It's definitely funnier than simply reading my typed rendition of it.

For the references in these end notes, go to Nostalgia Critic's website and watch The Next Top 11 Nostalgia Critic Fuck-Ups (I dunno if that's exactly what the title is, but you get the idea).

So yeah. Tune in next time (Or now, if this is currently not the latest chapter) to follow the antics of Louise the Zero and Ludo (Bagman!)!

By the way, if you think the character is Ludo Bagman, you're an ass. Nope, I don't even like the way you think.

"And so, it came to pass" that I got this shit over with:

**REVIEW! REVIEW!**

**YOU'VE READ THE FUCKING STORY NOW FUCKING REVIEW!**

**REVIEW EVERY FUCKING CHAPTER OF THIS COCKBUCKET IF YOU CAN MANAGE IT!**

**NOOOOOOWWWWW!11/1!1/1!1!1101!one!1ELEVEN!**

**AND BE QUICK ABOUT IT!**

**WAIT, NOT QUICK, ****THOROUGH****! AH YES THOROUGH!**

**GO THROUGH THIS SHIT WITH A FINE TOOTH COMB! DON'T OMIT ANYTHING! I DON'T CARE IF YOU CURSE! I STILL ACCEPT ANONYMOUS REVIEWS **although I still prefer reviews by members so I can get back to you **BUT STILL**

**NOW PRESS THAT HOT LITTLE BUTTON AND FUCK DAT ASS/KEYBOARD UNTIL YO MOMMA SCREAMS FOR MERCY!**


	3. Chapter 3

In the desperate hope of not losing momentum, I am dedicatedly trying to get through this chapter.

If I can break through the three chapter barrier, I'll finally end the curse of the "Final Third", where I haven't written an actual chapter for a story of mine after finishing the third chapter.

Though, if you wanna get technical, I've technically broken that barrier for one "storyline", but I haven't gotten past the second chapter for the second installment, so I've got loads to work on with that one in any case…

For now, let's continue with this one, and maybe, just mayyybe, this story will be regularly updated, to the point of actually seeing a satisfying completion.

After finishing only one multi-chapter story, like two, three years ago, I wanna finish something again. Only this time it'll have a following beyond people with a strong stomach for crap long enough to see something vaguely entertaining.

Well enough about Pariah's Wasteland and now on to the infinitely less crappy story…

**~A~**

The sun's rays filtered in through the windows, filling the room with light and warmth and illuminating the opulent four poster bed next to them. The sole inhabitant of the bed was still in slumber, mumbling of her dreamland adventures.

Across the room, the door leading to the hallway opened. A bunch back'd figure entered sluggishly, holding a neat stack of freshly cleaned clothes. He hobbled through the door, closing it shut with a deft brush from his free hand.

The wizened man trod silently across the room to the foot of the bed. His gaze traveled over the sleeping girl's lightly snoring form. She murmured softly, shifting in the bed. Her familiar smiled.

Turning and placing the neat stack of clothes at the foot of the bed, Ludo strode intently to another, less neat wad of clothing. He picked it up, tucking it under his arm, then went into the nearby closet, making sure to close it behind him.

After a couple moments of bumping, cursing, and generic muttering, the familiar-man stepped out from the closet, once again decked-out in his cloak-concealed outfit. Securing the small clasps hanging from either side of the heavy garment, he eliminated any mundane chance of revealing the maille underneath.

Crouching down to kneel softly on the floor, he sat on the balls of his feet and drifted into a light sleep, one eye kept open.

Louise, still slumbering, mumbled inanities about pies and love and roses.

**~W~**

She stirred softly, but it was enough to have her head touch the cold headboard. The girl's eyes flew open with a start. She bolted upright in a hurry, making to leap from the covers. She half succeeded, making it out of the bed, but getting tangled up in the sheets in the process and thus sending her form plummeting to the unforgiving wood floor.

The impact made a funny sound: for one, the entire room's furniture rocked slightly in a concerted groan, and two for the interesting mix between an oafish wheeze and a squeak that came out of the diminutive girl when she belly flopped on the floor of her bedroom.

Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere groaned, pushing herself up onto her hands. She looked around the room for her outfit, which was usually set out by a maid early in the morning. When she saw the slightly moving form in the corner, she near jumped out of her skin, screaming and shuffling back on her butt away from the large imposing- if not exactly swift-moving- intruder. Her heart beating in her tightened throat, she screamed "Who! Who are you!"

Wincing slightly, whether it was from his being disturbed from his brief, meditative slumber or from the loud high-pitched tenor of his master's shrieking was hard to tell- and irrelevant, anyways- Ludo lifted his head, opening his other eye as he did so.

"Dear me, you don't recall? I'm Ludo- Ludoviccus Reamosgh the-"

Some form of comprehension must have flickered within her head, as she stopped hyperventilating and holding onto the wall for dear life. She acknowledged his reintroduction with an "Ah~"

No longer fearing for her maidenhead, she stretched and yawned, sleepily continuing on. "Oh, that's right… from yesterday-

"You're the familiar I summoned, right?" she asked, covering her mouth as she yawned.

The old man smirked good naturedly, saying "Goodness- and some of my friends had told me that _my_ memory was dreadful."

Needless to say, he didn't feel the necessity to point out that said acquaintances were many times his own age…

He rose to his feet, making sure to grunt and grimace convincingly, walked over to the bed and plucked up Louise's fresh clothes, making sure to swipe off a mote of lint on the edge of the girl's folded cloak. He stood, expectantly looking at Louise.

"Why are you just standing there and staring? Hurry up and- oh."

Obviously expecting her familiar-implemented-as-servant to not commit himself to his new life in a new position, she stood awkwardly for a few moments before saying "Ah, well then," and plucking up her skirt and shirt from the perfectly neat stack (so neat that she found it almost unnerving).

"The underwear is in the bottom drawer of the dresser—" she quickly informed Ludo, indicating her requirement of a fresh set.

The old man, not relishing her lack of understanding that he was supposed to be a nearly crippled old man with some incidentally powerful grip strength from the condition. He made a quiet show of himself, lethargically creeping to the dresser, quivering as he squatted down and retrieved a strange little lump of cloth in a rather bizarre folding pattern, and returned after visibly wincing again.

Louise blinked in surprise when she found her familiar there by her side again when she had just finished slipping on her skirt. Noting this reaction, Ludo cursed at himself silently for forgetting his "slow" was other people's "decently swift". He was slipping this morning. After all the pain he was heaping on himself for keeping up this act that was intended just for a couple minutes before he started knifing and gutting people and forcefully pulling their bones out from under their still-living flesh in retaliation to this disgraceful dragging him from his realm.

He hadn't counted on his wouldbe summoner to be a fairly innocent young girl, even if she was a bit of an unpleasant cunt. Even for her flaws, he'd felt sympathy for her plight, even though he'd only stayed that way until he was half her current age, but that was irrelevant. Whatever. On with the show. The painful, painful show.

"Hey!" his master said, snapping Ludo out of his brief reverie, "Button up my blouse for me!"

The white haired man laid the remainder of her clothes down on the corner of the bed, and then turned his attention to the little buttons of her blindingly white shirt, saying "My fingers aren't what they were when I was young, so tell me if I skip a buttonhole."

Again, Louise was startled when her familiar finished before she even expected him to be halfway done.

"Hold still," the old man advised. He swiped his hands down from the armpits of her shirt, firm fingers along the sides and the thumbs down the front, obliterating most of residual wrinkles in the fabric. Louise jerked a bit when his powerful thumbs swiped over her budding breasts, but she really didn't pay more mind to it than that. What really got her was what came next.

Ludo took her left shoulder lightly with his fingertips, saying "Turn," and guided her to stand with her left side facing him. He took the flat of his palm and quickly swiped it down her back three times, first left, then right, and then right down the middle, sliding over her butt.

She blushed and stiffed a bit, but when she turned her head to look at him, there was no telling signs that he was up to anything. No mischievous grin, no twinkle in his eye, no smirk tugging at his lips, no blush, not even an attempt at a straight, serious face; It just was a straight, serious, businesslike face. Louise felt her face heat up at her rather lurid expectations.

As her familiar turned his attention to reordering his own appearance, producing a simple ivory comb from out of nowhere, Louise shook her head to clear it of such things. However, her concentrating on those thoughts caused an even worse thought to appear in her mind, like something out of one of those heavy romance books Tabitha was often reading (how the girl ever kept from giggling or blushing was beyond her). Like that one with the family butler and the young-

Ludo was studiously combing his white locks into something presentable, noting in passing how flustered his mistress seemed to be getting while she was finishing her dressing. Perhaps she was envisioning some paramour she had or would want to have. Perhaps she was embarrassed that she had been so rash to such a compliant servant. Perhaps she was erotically involved with her tantalizingly high stockings. The old man tried to forget about the last one, as it conjured up some memories from his early life. Unlike Louise, his eyebrow only twitched spasmodically, which his covered up by combing through his long, snowy hair one more time.

Louise was still lost in her thoughts, recalling a memorable part of the story, particularly near the end where the heiress began to rip open her bodice out of heated desperation. This really had to stop. It had to, or she was going to lose to this onset of madness.

She was snapped out of her reverie by "Mistress? Miss Louise? Your lip's bleeding."

Finally noticing that she was biting into her lower lip enough to render it numb, she unclenched her teeth. A gush of a mixture of saliva and blood drizzled from her lip, covering her chin but, thankfully, not her fresh clothes.

Humming neutrally, Ludo quickly produced a kerchief from within the depths of his cloak and dabbed up the mess on his mistress's face. Louise noted silently that, although it was a bit ratty on the ends, it seemed to be of fine quality.

Her eyes widened when her familiar finished his cleaning of her chin and then gripped a piece of the fabric and ripped it off. The old man held it out to her, saying "Here. Take this and put it between your lips. Suck on it for a while, generally until you feel like it's starting to dissolve, then discard it. It's finely knitted gauze soaked in some good medicine, so it should help with that split lip of yours just about instantly."

Louise blinked dumbly. Her familiar shook the proffered strip. "Take it, already; it's not got any of _my_ dribble on it, so there's no need to be leery."

The mage girl grabbed the cloth and popped it on her injured lip, closing her mouth around it. She near immediately made a face at the strong bitter taste of the thing.

"Most decent medicine isn't going to taste like candy, Miss Louise, or your favored cookberry pie. Especially the medicine I have."

The diminutive girl looked insulted at being talked to in such a fashion, but, seeing as her familiar-acting-as-servant was taking his role seriously, she concluded that his quirks were something she could to live with. She was starting to find comfort in her luck landing a plebe as a familiar, as a dragon couldn't wash her clothes or help dress her, and a griffon, majestic and intelligent as it was, probably wouldn't acquiesce so quickly or offer assistance so naturally.

It was almost like she was home again. Thinking of home, and then comparing it to the Academy, a vein in her temple throbbed.

Yes, home; if home had hordes of whiny sublevel nobles willing to undermine their betters at the hint of even a stumble, it was definitely this place. The level of petty backstabbing from even the supposedly loyal and kind servants of the Academy was enough to make Louise want to strangle something. Particularly a female with bigger breasts than her. The young magic user took solace in the beautiful image of wrapping her hands around the Zerbst whore's throat and throttling her until she magically turned into an eel.

"Try not to move your mouth so much, Miss Valliere, the oil in the cloth works best on still flesh. I'm glad you're feeling up today, though."

Louise looked again at her familiar, glancing into his attentive grey eyes. They looked like wet, sun-warmed stones in a stream on a summer day. She blinked again at the thoughts swimming around in her head. She was feeling awfully awake and imaginative today.

Still, it was time to get on with business. Louise straightened herself up, trying to look as regal as she possibly could with a piece of yucky-tasting tape in her mouth. She strode in long, quick steps to the door leading into the hallway. "Come, familiar," she said.

"Eh? What's that you say?"

Realizing that her mouth was half-stuck to the piece of cloth between her lips, rendering her ability of speech into incomprehensible gibberish, she growled and turned around, motioning roughly for her familiar to follow.

"Ah," he said, raised eyebrows descending, "Well, then; let us be on our way."

**~O~**

It was readily apparent that they were on the very tail end of the morning rush, indicating that Louise had slept in a significant amount of time. Usually, she'd be one of the first students down, not wanting to be found by some of the less friendly students, chief among them being her dogged rival, the damned Germainian maneating scum, Kirche.

"Well, here's the Hall of Arvys," she informed her familiar, "the usual place of dining at the Academy."

"You should really take that cloth out of your mouth now, Miss Louise; if not for the fact that it makes your speech a bit, eh, difficult, it will also begin to have a narcotic effect if you suck on it for too long an extended period of time."

At that, she quickly pulled the medical gauze scrap from her mouth and slapped it into Ludo's hand.

"As I was trying to say, this is the Hall of Arvys, also known as our dining hall."

"Er, mistress," Ludo said uneasily, "What am I supposed to _do_ exactly…"

He picked up the saliva drenched cloth gingerly with his other hand. "… with this?"

"Eat it for all I care, familiar, it's not important," Louise lightly snapped, approaching the table.

Sighing, the old man placed the sopping cloth in a real kerchief, folding it in and placing the wad in an empty pocket for another time. He hustled over to his mistress's side, pulling out a chair for her.

Louise was again astonished by her familiar's cordial expedience, but she took it in stride and took the proffered seat.

"May I dine with you, mistress, or should I find my own meal in the kitchens?"

The young mistress pondered this for a moment; she hadn't really given it any thought, really, and she felt that it would be unfitting to allow her servile familiar to wander off to his own devices- he was old, so something would happen ._What_ would happen was a train of thought that Louise cut off before her wild imagination took off and left her staring awkwardly at her benign familiar, wondering what sorts of deviant thoughts were lurking behind those demure grey eyes.

Seeing as none of the other students appeared to have a human familiar, it seemed to be plausible to allow this particular familiar to sit at the table and partake of normally nobles' sustenance. She felt a little giddy at being able to set such auspicious precedents, and more than a little daring for doing it without seeking permission from the faculty first.

With this in mind, she said "Since you have done what you were supposed to do and filled your role as my servant, you have earned that right. Plebian or no, you are a Valliere's familiar, and you shall not be denied something that I deign you should have."

Ludo's eyebrows rose a fraction at this rather officious declaration, but it was well in line with his expectations of the young magic user, so he felt that this was a step in the right direction for him.

He took a seat on the right hand of the young noble girl, careful to adjust his seat and place the decorative napkin him his lap.

Ludo's mouth watered at the chance to eat an actual meal after a steady diet of ration biscuits that tasted of dust and dirt- partly because a certain tan whore in charge of the carrying of the lightest of the baggage on their penultimate excursion had "accidentally" dumped all of his share onto the incredibly gross floor of the mead hall in Harrogath and partly because the biscuits naturally tasted like dirt. For drinks, he had to suffer sludgy mana potions, chalky flesh-restoration tonics (called health potions by the primary meatwall of their group), and simply _vile_-tasting antidotes.

The fact that his way of debriding his brutalized palate was swilling multiple warming curatives, which, normally used as a tactile cure for potent ice spells to be absorbed through the skin, had a syrupy and slightly salty flavor, which wasn't all bad, but had a strange aftertaste that tasted strangely like lead and toenail clippings, was, in essence, a bit frightening. Compared to that culinary feast of horror and the unholy alternative of swilling that ghastly watered-down piss water that passed for mead in Harrogath, this was a real slice of heaven. He also noticed that his meal was half-cold.

The man was absolutely not going to settle for cold victuals, no matter how sumptuous or for how extended a time he had gone without real sustenance.

He pulled out from his cloak a small stout glass vial that was topped with an intriguing caplike mechanism. Taking the ring on the side of it, he pulled the stiff wire connected to it and pushed in back in, repeating the process with a nearly mechanical precision, the device making a muffled whirring and grinding sound as small sparks flew around in the glass.

Louise, disturbed from her giving thanks to Brimir and the Queen for her meal by the noise, turned to look at her familiar's frenetic fiddling with the little contraption. "Familiar, exactly what are you doing? What is that you're playing with?"

Ludo smiled, saying "Ah, you mean this?" He pointed to the gizmo in his hands. "This is a nice little curio from my world, a trinket gained from my travels abroad. It's a soup warmer."

Genuinely interested, Louise shifted to face her familiar. "A soup warmer?"

"Ah, yes," he said, continuing his explanation and his dutiful thrusting of the wire in and out of the glass, "You do as I'm doing to warm up the glass. Once you've got it at the heat you prefer, you lower the soup warmer into the bowl or cup or what have you and hold it there until it's at a heat suited to your preference. Some people like to stir these things around to heat their soup more evenly, but the tradeoff is the accumulated scratches on it, which can lead to a rather nasty, poisonous leakage, mind you."

Louise pondered this for a moment, watching as her familiar, satisfied with his cranking, lowered the device into the stagnant soup. Soon enough, actual steam began to rise, and her familiar, humming in approval, cleaned and polished the glass piece with another of his kerchiefs, before making to put it back into his cloak.

"Um, could I…?"

The familiar-man stopped in his motion. "Yes~?"

"Could I use that?" Louise said, swallowing a small portion of her pride.

"Oh, nonononono. At least, not this one," he said, finishing putting it away, but then fishing for something else.

He soon produced a similar glass, but this was smaller, with a wide, upturned bottom and a longish cord sticking out from a simpler-looking metal cap. "This is made with the casual user in mind, as the more permanent traveling soup warmer has the liability to break apart in nasty ways and for parts of its mechanism to ruin in all but careful, experienced hands belonging to such as myself and those who had some small amount of gold to spare to get enough for the practice and for the medical attendances normally required shortly after."

Ludo brought the glass closer for his mistress to see. "With ones like this, you simply pull the cord," He studiously yanked it, causing a rather loud and startling snap to echo down the dining hall, causing what few heads remained to turn. "Briskly, mind you, but not too hard as to pull out the cord. You'll need it later, as you will see."

Still holding onto the bottle, but only by the cord at this point, he leaned slightly and angled it carefully into Louise's own bowl. Again the familiar continued on with his thorough explanation.

"Now, some like to get those fancy phosphorescent flash soup warmers- ones that light up and glow various pretty colors- but those have a tendency to explode far too often for my liking. The results aren't always amusing, either."

Leaning back as much as he could with his hunch, he clasped his hands neatly. "And there you have it. You'll want to remove that soon, that thing's pretty hot. Another fact to note about the instant ones is that they come in only one set heat and are tricky to dispose of without someone stepping on the damn things."

Louise began to reach for the amusingly bobbing glass in the now lightly simmering soup.

"By the cord, remember," Ludo interjected, his mistress's hand stopping a hairsbreadth from touching the soup warmer, "And using a spoon to fish it out will end up with the spoon bending into a useless shape."

Gingerly picking up the hot glass by the now soup-sodden cord, she placed the thing on the tablecloth.

"Not the wisest idea, mistress," her familiar said, "It's very likely the wood would warp under the heat of that thing." Vein throbbing on her temple again, she placed it down next to her foot, quickly punting it rolling down the length of the table, narrowly missing Ludo's longer legs. "Oh dear. Well, let's leave before someone steps on it and has to go get amputated."

"No," Louise replied sharply, "I'm going to eat my meal and enjoy it. No need to hurry."

"Other than the threat of expulsion?" Ludo muttered under his breath, but he turned back to his own breakfast and partook of his luscious meal, now somehow more delicious for the fact that there was the chance of danger to go with it. His largely sadistic personality reveled in this little risky business,

Grinning, he murmured his own soft utterances in adulation of Trag'Oul and went about politely consuming this sumptuous repast.

Soon enough, there was the anticipated casualty; some new mage's yellow, ratlike pet pawed at the glass rather violently until the normally harmless device exploded. Being so close to the device when it detonated, the stupid creature's body partially exploded, sending a horrifying spray of blood and viscera all around ground zero. Some people began to scream, some running for cover, others gaping in horror at the destruction.

The owner of the now obliterated creature knelt down at the sloppy remains, yelling "No~~~! P*kachu! I chose you~!"

Louise, staring wide eyed momentarily at the frightening destruction, heard a soft, malevolent chuckle in the direction of the incident. She leveled her stare upon her familiar, who was at that point puckishly grinning down to his soup as he spooned another juicy morsel of lamb into his mouth, chewing it with relish and swallowing. "Did I mention that the maker of those soup warmers was a former munitions manufacturer for a powerful warring alchemist state, and that his designs were based off of schematics for real grenades used for skirmishes? You'd have to be a rather tough bastard to try pitching one of those back."

The Zero, in that moment, realized that her wonderfully compliant, genial familiar had more than a little to hide, and that he was an intimidating manipulator. She felt a little scared, but, oddly, she also felt a thrill of… something…

Wiping out the remnants of the soup with a torn-off piece of his roll, the now frightening old man shook his head. "No, no," he said in a casual, comforting tone of voice, "Don't worry about getting caught on this little accident; you stayed to enjoy your meal, instead of hurriedly leaving to escape implication like I had suggested. That was an unknowingly good move on your part. Also, exploded soup warmers leave no traces unless you had a fine pair of tinker's tweezers and a dustpan. Even if the area of the detonation is undisturbed, one sneeze or a hard enough breath out will obliterate any reasonable hope of piecing it together. I have no doubt that the largest pieces of evidence at this moment are now harmlessly embedded in the ceiling or paneling of this room. At most, they will become a mysterious, nearly invisible source of superstition and frustration for the maids as they get their lovely little feather dusters torn up in one part of this room or another. Feel better now?"

Louise nodded slowly, still a little disturbed.

"Right then," the familiar-man said, standing up from his seat, "Time to go to class. Or is this not an Academy?"

"S-sit down and eat your pie," the noble girl ordered, slightly stuttering.

The old man nodded sincerely. "As you wish," he said, once again taking his seat.

"I just hope nothing else explodes today," she said, now dreading the upcoming classes.

"I'm going out on a limb, here, but you're not referring to my soup warmers anymore, are you?"

The grim setting of her teeth was all the confirmation he needed.

"Well", he began again, "if those explosions do happen, perhaps you could send a few of your unpleasant colleagues to meet their maker."

"Stop it, that's not something to joke and laugh about, familiar."

"Sure it is. Watch: I'll start first: Ha ha ha ha-ha. Now you."

"It isn't! And stop mocking me."

"Oho!" Ludo said, his white eyebrows raising in comic disbelief, turning to his mistress in comedic fashion, "You have no idea of the fun to be had!"

"Stop it!"

"Oh, you," he said, waving his hand in a fairly effete fashion, "If you insist."

"And stop doing _that_," Louise commanded, smacking her familiar lightly.

"What, you mean _this_?" he said, hitting her back.

"Wh- you- argh" Louise smacked him back harder.

"A war, is it? Take that!" Ludo swatted her back, but without getting harder.

"Ah! You- you…!" Louise hit him again.

"Ouch," he said unconvincingly, striking back again.

"Why you insolent-" Louise began, quickly returning fire.

"Whatever, you need to have _fun_," he said, adding "I, an old, grumpy codger, have more fun in me than you do. And take that!" Again the playful slap.

"Oh, you cheeky, dusty old-" Louise said, winding up, "traitor!" she exclaimed, swinging a fairly potent slap to her familiar's shoulder, from which came a metallic noise.

"What was that? I heard a 'clink'"

"A 'clink'?" Ludo said, sweating slightly, "I have nothing that goes 'clink'"

"I definitely heard it! Show me!"

All of a sudden, the old familiar stood up rapidly (but remembered to keep in his hunch), pointing at some random point up outside one of the large windows in the hall. "Look! A naked flying woman!" he exclaimed.

The familiar-man could faintly hear a faraway desperate cry of "Where?", and then a monotonous, simultaneous groaning of something that sounded awfully like "Yeesh" amongst the still lingering students.

"In any event," Ludo said, still standing at his seat, "We really need to get off to your classes. Your teacher's probably furious!"

"… you still need to finish your pie."

The old man's eye visibly twitched. "Oh really? _Fine_, then!"

Taking up his fork, still standing, he scraped together the remnants of his cookberry pie and shoveled the whole pile into his mouth.

"See? Mm delicious," Ludo murmured through a mouthful of pie, making a show of chewing his dessert (with his mouth mostly closed, thankfully) and rolling his eyes in feigned ecstacy. Louise giggled helplessly at his antics. "Yes, so good. MMMMmmm. Now-"

Ludo swallowed heavily, clearing his mouth instantly, continuing with "-can we leave now?"

Now that her familiar had choked down the pie and stopped making a spectacle of himself, Louise's laughter petered out, finally ended with a conspicuous cough into her fist. "Ahem *heh*: No. Sit down and wait for me to finish now."

The [funny] old man scowled comically, then put on a painfully fake, toothy grin. "Why… yes, my wonderful mistress."

"GOOD; now sit." Louise returned to her meal, finally finishing her soup and starting on her buttered roll.

"Ugh" was all he said, slowly lowering himself into his seat facing her, staring intently.

Noticing this, Louise began to eat at an incredibly lethargic pace, taking her time just to take a bite of her mostly finished roll. Ludo had an ugly feeling that they were going to be at this for a while.

**~D~**

Irritatingly enough, Louise did finish shortly- as soon as her familiar stopped intently glaring at her. Still, Ludo had started getting carried away after the explosion, but he diverted his mistress's attention away from the elephant in the room- twice, if one counted the issue with the clinking (on that note he really needed to re-oil the maille before it started making more unsolicited racket)- which was definitely a plus. The little noble would probably think less of him now, and more than a little suspicious of his old man act.

Louise patted her mouth clean with her napkin, a faint smile on her lips. Ludo, watching this, observed that she really was cute enough to die for, though he put more value in his life than that. Still, it was a definite plus when handling base servitude.

On that note, he was definitely going to wring as much entertainment out of this shitpipe of a situation if it hopefully killed him, rendering his grey soul into the void, where he would be free to return to his place of origin without going to the trouble of Planewalking to drag his physical body there. Not that he intended to die easily, oh no; the last thing he wanted to do was to get wrapped up in a dreading sense of trepidation at kicking the bucket… ending up dying in a moderately humiliating way like a number of poor silly bastards- one of which had the bright idea of sticking his thumb up his arse to keep himself from voiding his bowels when he hanged himself. Didn't keep him from pissing himself, though. The discovery of his body was… picturesque, to say the least...

Ludo shuddered. He was a twisted one, alright, but there were a few concepts, including suicide, that just gave him the willies. Whatever the willies were, he never knew, but they were definitely unfriendly willies. Willies…

Louise stood up pointedly announcing "We're leaving," snapping her familiar out of his pondering. They seemed to be doing that a lot to each other today, although Ludo felt that he was enjoying it far more than Louise seemed to be, what with her absentminded attempt to gnaw through her lip.

"Finally!" he rejoiced, stretching his back and arms, causing his back to audibly crack and pop at their sudden straightening. With a start, remembering his role, he quickly settled back his hunch. Louise stared at him awkwardly, and internally (somehow) he began to sweat.

"Didn't you-"

"What?" he said, looking completely natural and acting as if nothing was particularly off- and somewhat curious as to what his mistress was on about.

"When you got up…"

"Yes?"

"Hadn't you…?" 

"Hadn't I what?"

"Your hunch."

"My what?"

"Didn't it- oh, nevermind." Louise finally conceded, abandoning her attempts to grill her strange familiar who had somehow straightened up for a moment, or so she thought. She also thought that she had seen the hint of large, thick muscles underneath his cloak as the fabric stretched against his form. But that wasn't possible; he was old.

She turned, making for the path to her first class. If she had the sense to look back at her familiar at that exact moment, she would have caught an unmistakably purposeful, comedic grin displayed across his face- a grin from ear to ear, eyebrows dropped low, and eyes open wide. It made for quite the image as they departed, some glimpsing at the scene briefly and then rapidly doubletaking.

Noticing the stir in the remaining crowd, Ludo loosened his grip on his hood underneath his cloak, allowing it to fall back (he'd had it pulled tight around his head, hiding all hints of his hair whilst fully displaying his face), dropping the funny face for a more reserved expression, and straightening up a bit (though not enough to undo the hunch). That way, he looked a bit more respectable, perhaps even austere, with his high quality brown cloak that was a shade too dark to be a student's, his pristine black travelling boots, neat snowy mane, and grim face. It didn't keep others from doubletaking this time, though, upon seeing the Zero with what appeared to be some sort of hedge wizard, dutifully striding across the grounds to the schooling towers.

Louise grimace, picking up her pace significantly. "We're definitely going to be late," she said.

Glancing around at the surrounding area, which was still rife with students hurrying about, Ludo sighed in exasperation. "Would that there were no people nearby, I'd assist you with that problem."

His mistress turned to look at him, still walking swiftly onward. "How so?"

"Wouldn't you like to know? Rise earlier next time and you might get your answer…"

"… you've still got a bit of pie on your face."

The familiar-man blinked. "Oh, do I?" he said, producing yet another kerchief from his person and dabbing his face off.

Louise looked at him in slight suspicion. "How many of those things do you have?"

Ludo chuckled, and then his face hardened frightfully. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Louise almost fainted from the shock when his face continued to change into a comical glare, which instead caused her to snort in amusement. In a ladylike way, of course.

"I have more kerchiefs and cloths than you could possibly know about," he continued, "and some in places you shouldn't."

Louise faced forward again, head down to hide the slight blush that arose from the implications.

"So, where to, mistress?"

"Just keep following and you might just find out."

**~T~**

It turned out the first class was about- surprise, surprise- magic. Specifically, "earth" magic. Of course, what was so special about rocks and dirt anyways was beyond Ludo; you had the ability to control sloppy, sedimentary matter and dump it on your opponents and get laughed at for always having sand in your eye and mud on your trousers. Not exactly dignified was it?

Of course, most "earth" mages aspired to working with gems and crystals, but exactly how often is there going to be a random bed of diamonds lying around, waiting to be unloaded upon your unfortunate enemy? More often than not the "gems" you'll find are useless things like talc and crushed soapstone, which weren't particularly grand or useful, now were they? And when are you going to have the chance to either have a sufficient personal supply of hard gemstones that were hard to get and not easy to lose (but certainly easy to steal) or to transmute a promising rock or heap of topsoil into something awesome like granite whilst your opponent either charged at you screaming blue bloody murder as he came to take the head off your shoulders or quickly prepared a faster, nastier energy spell to ameliorate your life and your corpse?

Really. At least with the "water" mages you'd have the satisfaction of scaring multiple enemies to bits as you violently ripped the moisture out of one of their compatriots once you were at a sufficient level of mastery.

And "wind" mages were powerful even if you threw them in some suffocating liquid. Unless, of course, that liquid turned out to be some magically concentrated acid…

"Fire mages? Forget it; once they got a hold of some fuel or were able to generate a hot enough spark, it was all over. Still, they came with a decently high mortality rate.

Still, this is considering generic magic, not the eldritch Viz'Jerei forms where you would cook a morlu in its armor with the proper formation of consonants and vowels. But who's learning that anymore, since the last famed practitioner was missing, presumed dead, after taking on the demon-worshipping apostate in Tristram with his less useful compatriots?

But whatever. Earth magic.

Ludo sat there, listening to the ignorant droning of the teaching magister. Now, really, from that explanation it sounded like this preference of elements was inbred. At the mention of the "Void" element, he snorted, muttering "You mean real magic?"

Louise elbowed him from her seat to the right of him, lightly glaring. They had missed the demonstration, which had given the students the sudden desire to become masters of magic, if only to transmute stones into lovely, pretty things like gold, silver, and diamond.

Having come in the middle of the volunteering for a student-grade demonstration, the Zero had breathed a sigh of relief at being passed over unscathed on that account. Of course, the lateness had cost her, ending up with Louise having to sit a row over from the tan tyrant, but she'd already had a long day, so she didn't pay attention to any of the usual jeers pointed at her. She did still appreciate the teacher's moral reprimand, but she focused on the lesson and on keeping her familiar from making silly comments that either got her in trouble or made her crack up (then causing her trouble).

Suffice to say, it was nothing new, so she looked through the note journal that Ludo had somehow had on his person along with her various reading materials (she blushed at the one being the collection of erotic stories she'd borrowed from Tabitha), revising various points and elaborating on others. Although she couldn't perform magic at any level (beyond the one summon spell, which turned out better that she'd originally thought, but was still a one-time occurrence, assuming that her aged familiar didn't die off at some inconvenient point in the future), she certainly could discuss the theories of magic and spellmaking for days on end. This much she would do to the fullest capacity that she could, "Zero" be damned.

**~A~**

Unexpectedly, the class passed quickly (probably something to do with Louise's having arrived particularly late, even with her familiar's evident preparedness in the face of such a situation.

Of course, at the end of class, the teacher had prompted Louise about the man with her, at which point she had to awkwardly explain that he was, in fact, her newly summoned familiar. Safe to say, a good number of people started in again with the insults, but the rather hard look in the decrepit-looking familiar made more than a few of them uneasy.

The tan, tall one with the tits, however, wasn't perturbed, feigning politeness as she introduced herself.

"I see you're as lively as usual today-" she "cleverly" observed.

Louise turned slightly to the returned threat, sighing. "Eh. Kirche…"

Kirche stepped closer to the shorter girl, instead intently looking at her familiar. "Morning~ Louise's familiar- umm…?"

Realizing he was now on the spot, the old man settled back in his routine senility. "Call me Ludo; All the children do."

Louise, though annoyed at Kirche's chest's proximity to her face, bit the inside of her cheek to keep from giggling; her familiar was back to being an obnoxiously senile old man, which meant the damn Germanian would soon be frothing at the mouth. She almost slipped when she noticed Kirche's realization that she was being named a child, which seemed to manifest in a rather amusing tic in her lower eyelid. The shortest noble in the room retreated to her familiar's side, badly attempting to keep a straight face.

Still, the intentionally-seductive girl recovered and continued on, introducing the red reptile on her shoulder. "This is my familiar, Flame-"

Ludo just about snorted at the rather redundant name, having noticed the flame-tipped tail. And the fiery hissing. Definitely the hissing.

Unaware of the familiar-man's internal battle to keep up appearances, Kirche continued on. "I hope you two would get along nicely together," she said in a saccharine voice.

Louise felt a brief pang of jealousy at the sight of the salamander, but then reminded herself that her familiar was more awesome as that; if for nothing else, his conversation and humorous wit kept her entertained. Still, she watched intently at the fire lizard, now off Kirche's shoulder, as it seemed to dance around her familiar like a puppy, Ludo himself seeming to get a little bit dizzy following the excited little bugger with his eyes.

"Nice, isn't he?" Kirche commented to Louise, unsolicited. "A perfect match for me!"

Already knowing her enemy's family's proclivity to fire magic (due to inbreeding), Louise remained silent, not really caring at this point.

Still, Kirche continued on, not noticing her rival's apparent lack of interest. "But… Tabitha's familiar is even better."

Louise's eyebrows rose. It was one thing for the Germanian pest to go on endlessly about how her possessions were fantastic and superior to Louise's, but she rarely ever sincerely complemented someone else or her things, even with an ulterior motive. And, obviously, she never complemented Louise. When Louise ever did something well, Kirche would find some way to dodge around it or pass it off as of little consequence, especially in the case of that something being something she herself failed at.

"Because she summoned a wind dragon."

Louise proceeded to be underwhelmed. Wow, a wind dragon; stupid, fangless, and without powerful breath, unless one considered draconic halitosis "powerful"(and some did), dragons of the wind varietal had only the simple advantage of speed. Good for transportation, which was good in an aerial battle, but not much else. The Valliere girl had heard the tales of regiments of wind dragon riders being pigeonholed into fairly tight tunnels to avoid persuit, only to end up fried when the enemy's earth dragon regiments came speeding in on their strong, agile limbs, spitting poison and acid at the helplessly cornered wind dragons and their masters. Safe to say, she saw how Tabitha herself wasn't too overwhelmed with joy at the result her summons, simply waiting on her roommate to stop gabbing proudly so they could move on.

In fact, the girl blankly looked at her companion, announcing "Class… we'll be late."

Kirche turned to Tabitha quickly. "You're right!" she admitted, adding "I'm sorry Louise but playtime's gonna have to wait."

With that, she and Tabitha departed forthwith, "Flame" finishing pawing at Ludo's feet and licking his hand to following his own mistress.

"An interesting little creature;" the familiar man noted, "-his summoner's a zero, though."

Louise blinked in disbelief. "What, really? You honestly believe a mage like that with that much ability and such large breasts to be a "zero'?"

Ludo's hunched shoulders shrugged slightly. "I value people differently. She's nearing the limit of her talent, she knows it, her family knows it, and her attempts at gaining attention and being all about pomp and circumstance only confirm that fact. Quite frankly, you hold a rather powerful potential within that slight frame of yours, believe it if you can…"

The short mage stared at him as they started off towards the next class in the schedule. "I don't believe you."

"There are some things in this universe, Miss Louise," Ludo said frankly, "that I understand implicitly, magic being one of them."

"But I'd thought you were a plebe-"

"Those rough connotations have no basis on reality in this current time in your world's history; your token aristocracy's weak, the royalty of the various lands have grown stupid and complacent, and weak blood has been allowed in with the strong. I have seen this happen in my own land, as well as the results in the lands abroad, and it is akin to a festering corpse that even buzzards deign too vile for their cancerous gizzards. The only difference is that magic users rule apart from the nobility and control different aspects of society.

"And, of course, the deciding factor back in the beginning of the various clans and noble houses was military might, and, before that, the physical athletic prowess of the leader and the acuity of his mind to lead.

"It is inevitable that even the strongest dynasty will quickly rot to motes of dust in the face of an impetuous, lazy inheritor and an equally indolent people. If you ever start hearing anyone not of the paupers beginning to complain about what the nobility should be doing for him, the festering of that society has begun. Only the weak make a large noise in the face of dissatisfaction, but it is by the weak that ye fall."

They were already halfway to their destination, still trailing behind the Germanian and her companion, Louise completely floored by the old man's powerfully insightful oration (although she somewhat felt the impulse to disagree with it.).

"But, to get back to more relevant matters, Miss Louise, I am not a baron, a count, a duke, an earl, a viscount, a voivode, a prince, a regent, a knight, a lord, or a king.

However, I have been a scholar of magic and its workings for longer than probably all living on this earth at this time have even been alive. I'd have to say I don't come from any academy, school, or college that you've ever heard of, but I am confident in my knowledge."

Louise began to quiver a little bit, whether it was from nerves or excitement she hadn't the care to discern. "Wh- where did you learn? Where did you live?"

Ludo smiled, his dark eyes glittering in the dim hallway. "Khanduras, remember?

"North of Duncraig, south of the Ensteig Wilderness?

"Ziggurat Subterrane of Rathma? You should really learn to remember what I say, Louise, or I may make the mistake of placing too much in your hands…"

They arrived at the classroom, Louise now really nervous. She took a few calming breaths, though, and walked in clear-eyed into the room, moving to a good seat off to the side, Ludo coming from behind her and pulling out a chair for her to sit before seating himself. This time, the two were well away from the troublesome Germanian and her silent toady, so things were definitely better than the first class that morning.

Louise sighed, heart again hammering in her throat, her gaze slipping from the speaker to her familiar and back every so often. This was going to be a long day.

**~W~**

The class was generally one of discussion, mainly of the theories associated with rune arrangement and the philosophies behind pentangles, pentagons, hexangles, heptangles, and so on. It was an illuminating lesson for Louise, having her struggle to write down all the information bombarding her and to depict the various designs as described, but the look of her familiar in the corner of her eye seemed to be one of a casual boredom- a boredom not inspired by the dryness or length of the talks, but rather as if he'd heard it all before and discussed it himself at length several times `til his face turned blue. He simply wasn't interested in the material, although he certainly paid attention for necessity's sake.

Louise was beginning to get the feeling that he was not exaggerating in the least about his involvement with magic. However, it occurred to her that she hadn't seen him use any magic at all, not even making so much as a pass or some effort to conceal a movement. Everything he did was swift, efficient… and mundane. Utterly explainable without getting into metaphysical pretexts or detailing the pull of ley lines. Completely… plebian.

And yet, the young mage felt that this was more proof than anything that he was intimately involved in magic for as long as he'd claimed, just in the fact he didn't have the kneejerk impulse to attempt a wonderful thing because he was so used to it that he was jaded and utterly inured to its temptations.

Still, she found his lack of solid evidence- or, at least, lack of willingness to bring it forward- rather irritating. It seemed that she'd have to bide her time and wait for him to slip up and reveal more of what he supposedly was, or simply endure the silence until he felt ready to actually teach her something about his approach to magic. Hell, if it got him to part with something to help her wield this potential he alleged she had, she'd wait an age for it!

She continued jotting down the various factoids being rattled off by the matter-of-fact speaker, taking care to briefly review her previous notes for any signs of redundancy, and then took to going over the lines for the arrangements to ensure their permanence and solidity.

Meanwhile, Ludo sat intently staring at the austere woman mage, attempting to discern whether she was wearing anything under that thick, utilitarian dress that had the most interesting bodice piece that he'd seen in some time. She knew some fairly basic magic principles, but she was definitely the best of the mages he'd seem so far. Not for so much as experience, but certainly by virtue of her cold, logical thought process, and, failing that, by virtue of her dedicatedly well-kept rack.

In the months ahead, it would certainly "keep" him well entertained…

**~O~**

The class passed without event, and even Louise, who had found some real use in the knowledge being provided, yawned half a dozen times throughout it. Time flew, though, and Louise found herself handing off the journal to her familiar for luggage and safe keeping.

"Well that was… rousing…" Ludo said, appearing to vaguely mean it.

His mistress sighed. "This day isn't over yet, and I'm somewhat regretting summoning you as a familiar."

"Oh?" the aged man said, "How so?"

"I've already gotten used to your constant blithering that the spaces between seem to drag. I'm fairly annoyed with you, familiar."

Ludo smiled, huffing. "Whatever suits you. If you'd like, I could talk this entire day away."

"Hm. Whatever. Let's get to Lunch, I'm getting hungry again…"

"Really? Lunch already?"

They walked on through the corridors of the tower for a time before reaching the stairs, and then descended those in silence.

Ludo only spoke up again when they had reached the ground landing and headed out into the noon sun, pondering aloud "I wonder if the cooks will be serving soup today…"

He grinned puckishly as his mistress stumbled on her feet. She glared at him as she righted herself, mildly incensed. Her familiar just smiled back at her.

**~D~**

There wasn't soup, but there was certainly plenty of meat on the plate, as well as some rather sumptuous delicacies. Unexpectedly, Ludo had taken to some of the more exotic ones like the beef tongue and fish eggs, as well as the chutney that seemed to have some sort of insect as its base ingredient.

About the only thing that Louise's familiar didn't touch were some piled food that looked a lot like sautéed meatballs in a savory vinegar sauce, something she later found out to be river bison testicles. Although they were certainly delicious, Louise didn't touch them again after learning the dish's identity.

Louise found Kirche's own reaction entertaining, the Germanian having been in the middle of chewing a properly sized piece of one. Her face had tinged green as she politely swallowed the mouthful, then excusing herself from the table for the night. The expression on her face in that brief moment was something that lifted the Valliere girl's spirits significantly.

After that, the lunch was quite dull, though Ludo's rather sharp narration of the rather vile eating habits of some of the young nobles. Louise and even some of the students sitting nearby were chuckling politely behind their hands, particularly when the commentary came around to the old man's take on the rotund Malicorne's frightfully bizarre way of stabbing a high stack of food onto his fork and then ramming the food wad halfway down his throat before drowning himself with hot punch and then repeating the gut-churning process.

Due to Louise's familiar, some part of the day was saved from being a dull affair, elevated nicely to a droll afternoon. A bit of community service, one would think.

But back to the point: Lunch passed, and it was time for the noontime classes.

The unlikely duo felt no need to rush at that point and took their time to enjoy the day. After spending so much time together confined to lecture rooms to bear either regurgitated factoids that any simpleton would know or theorems and treatises so dry and devoid of energy that their discussion would make a sloth yawn. Louise was used to this, but her observation from earlier rang true, and the girl genuinely suffered for it. Still, she had a willing servant now, so she felt that balanced nicely.

They had gotten to about halfway to their destination when the balding alchemist, Colbert, called for them. Louise stopped, an uneasy look on her face. Was the situation with the breakfast explosion already solved? It seemed that the man was on about something, judging from the speed with which he was moving.

Ludo moved a little past Louise, putting himself in the position to guard her, if necessary.

"Louise! *huff* Ugh, waugh. *huff* I must examine your familiar briefly."

The girl blinked. "What for, Mister Colbert?"

The balding man coughed, still trying to catch his breath. "It's about his runes. They took much longer than I'd expected to develop; they were only partially formed, so I had to come back later to check on them again. Your left hand, Ludoviccus?"

The familiar-man sighed, bringing his hand forward from within his cloak.

"Hold still," Colbert ordered, pulling the familiar's hand out further and examining it. "Hm. Hold on."

The scholar produced a rumpled journal the size of a large wallet from the inner pocket of his robe and flicked it open with a practiced flick of his thumb. His eyes scanned over the pages he'd opened to, looked at Ludo's hand, and then back. Then again the hand. Then the book. Hand. Book. Hand. Book. HandBook, BookHand. BookBookHand. HandBookHand.

His demeanor became more and more frenetic and seemingly amazed as his eyes moved back and forth several times, double-, triple-, octa-, deca-checking his book with the hand. Ludo found it rather amusing, despite the likely significance of his hand's runes. Whether whatever they indicated was a good thing or a bad thing remained to be seen, though the older man was leaning towards "pretty damn good".

"Well this is- my…" Colbert turned on his heel, quickly walking away. "The headmaster must know of this! This is-"

The heated scholar turned around, saying "What are you doing? Come with me! We need to see the headmaster!"

"But we have still more classes," Louise pointed out, "Madam Françoise is holding a discussion on the uses of water magic in-"

"Bugger Madam Françoise," Colbert swore, "this is important!"

Louise looked uneasily at her familiar, who was looking back at her. "Er…"

"Come on! We can't keep the headmaster waiting! The more we wait, the more likely Longueville will do injury to him! Hurry!"

Ludo looked pensive. "Well, if it's to prevent someone's injury~…"

Louise huffed. "Whatever. Madam Françoise's lectures bore the stuffing out of me, anyways."

"Come on!" Colbert called, already a fair distance away, now lightly running.

"Ugh!" Louise grunted, sprinting to catch up with the exuberant scholar.

"Wait! Wait!" Ludo called in a frantic old man's tenor, "I can't run that fa-"

The two didn't seem to even register his call, already pretty far along to the headmaster's office.

"Oh, bugger this," the familiar-man said, stooping into a lower stance and taking off at a frightening speed, kicking up a small cloud of dust where he had been standing.

Ludo was soon closing on Louise, then slowing down to her youthful clip. Louise looked over her shoulder. "You? I'd thought we'd left you behind," she said playfully, indicating that she had, in fact, heard him."

"You have no respect for your elders, Miss Louise," Ludo said as the three slowed down upon entering the hallway leading to the Headmaster of the Tristain Academy of Magic.

Louise leered in a mockingly authoritative way at her familiar, saying "Call me, Mistress Louise, familiar."

"Young people these days," Ludo growled, keeping step with the young mage.

Unknown to Ludo, someone had witnessed his brief abandonment of poise.

"Mm~. Interesting…" A pair of full red lips curved upward in a seductive smile.

**~T~**

"Old Osmond!" Colbert called, flinging open the double doors of the office, Louise and Ludo in tow.

A long haired- and equally long-bearded- old man sat behind a simple wood desk. Obviously the headmaster.

Off to the side of the room was a significantly smaller desk with a young woman behind it. Obviously _not_ the headmaster.

The balding scholar strode up to stand right before the headmaster's desk "Big news! The information I looked up has confirmed it!"

The headmaster's eyes twinkled thoughtfully. "Interesting. I'm sorry, Miss Longueville, would you excuse us for a moment? I would like to hear more details about this in private."

Ludo watched as the woman's eyes coolly glanced to the bearded old man, nodded, plucked up the stack of work on her desk, and made for the door. The shaven old man noticed the glimmer of defiance in her eyes as she exited. Good; he liked `em firey.

Somewhere, in a world well away from the world Ludo was currently imprisoned on, a blue and black centaur sneezed. He frowned, wrinkling his bulbous blue nose and his even more bulbous cleft forehead in irritation. Ever since that prissy two-legs barged in on his claiming of the gift from the god of the Underworld, things had gone to shit.

Well, it was off to rape some river nymphs again. The belligerent centaur snorted bullishly, galloping off in a mercurial state of mind.

Back on the more relevant world, the woman noticed the odd old stranger was staring at her and turned away quickly, leaving the room in a trice. Once out, Longueville shuddered. She was too used to the carefree old lecher that she'd forgotten how some old bastards were frighteningly observant. Those eyes... Longueville shuddered again.

Ludo slowly turned back to this discussion.

"Er… Louise," Colbert said, addressing the young magic student, "I believe you need to leave as well. This is-"

Ludo's eyebrow twitched. "Mister Colbert, what sense does withholding information about the familiar from the familiar's mistress make? We're bonded for life, so we might as well be the same person."

"Oh… yes. I'd forgotten… got lost in the moment for bit, there."

"Now, as to this inscription…" the headmaster began.

"Wait, Headmaster Osmond," Ludo interjected, "I need to ensure something first."

"Er…" Old Osmond began, the other old man already quickly and silently padding back to the double doors.

Ludo put his hand on a one of the doors which was cracked open to a degree that was from the headmaster's place in the room.

"Dear headmaster," the familiar- man said in a smooth, almost ageless voice, "with such interesting meetings as this-"

Ludo's pressing hand tensed. "- there are usually equally interesting unwelcome guests."

In a sudden, loud bang, the cracked door shut, the windows rattling.

Outside the office, Longueville nearly squeaked. She had not expected that. Perhaps a brief look outside the doors, which she was prepared for and practiced in doing- but not that. She swallowed nervously.

The familiar of Louise walked a few paces back to the group surrounding the desk, then turned back to the doors. "I'll keep on eye on these doors to make sure the wind doesn't blow them open. Continue with your discussion, gentlemen."

"Er… yes. Now, Colbert: is this real? Are you sure that this inscription is without flaw?"

The balding alchemist looked slightly miffed. "Headmaster, I looked up the lore myself! This without a doubt the runes and their significance!"

"My, my. Familiar, you have quite the unique runic legacy. Legendary, I'd say."

"Do tell," said Ludo, scrutinizing the keyholes from his position near the doors.

Colbert pounded his palms on the desk. "Legendary? This is the Gundlfr we're discussing!"

"Yes, quite. Very intriguing, that. After such a long time, too."

"Gandalfr?"

Colbert wound on the young Valliere, fire in his eyes. "The pronunciation's very particular: Gun-DL-fr. It's a little tricky with the inner mouth vocalization of the second syllable, but-"

"The point, good sirs?" Ludo interrupted.

"Miss Louise, to be brief, your familiar has been gifted with the runes of the Founder's familiar."

And that just about caused Louise to fall to the floor, her legs turned to jelly, if not for Colbert catching her. "Founder Brimir's own familiar's runes? What does this mean?"

"It means, Miss Valliere," the headmaster began, "that you are the mistress of the new Gundlfr, colloquially referred to as the Left Hand of God."

Ludo smiled, still facing the door. "A tad presumptuous a title, but… I like it."

Louise regained her composure, to her credit, and now looked questioningly at Colbert and the headmaster. "How does this affect my familiar, exactly? What will become of him?"

"That, Miss Valliere, is something we'll find out together," the headmaster quipped.

Colbert adjusted his glasses, his face coated with a thin sheet of sweat. "Repetition of runic arrangements is a rare occurrence, usually with differing results, so it's possible your familiar will be something wholly different from the Gundlfr from Brimir's time."

Louise's eyes were open wide at this point. "Wow… this is something. I mean, Brimir's own familiar's runes. By the Founder…"

"Although," Colbert said, disdain creeping into his voice, "I have no idea how such a disfigured summons was made as the new Gundlfr-"

"Deformed?" Ludo interrupted, turning around to face the group.

He walked forward in a slow, somewhat dramatic stride to stop in front of them all.

The Gundlfr slowly straightened up, undoing the clasps of his cloak, revealing the bone-wrapped black chain mail underneath. He straightened up further, vertebrae popping back into place, and then further. When he finished, he stood perfectly upright, now towering imposingly over them all.

Now that his cloak was open, Louise could see that she had not been seeing things before in Arvys Hall- that there was, in fact, large thick muscles beneath the man's cloak. _There's the thing that went clink_ a small voice in the back of her head said as her eyes roamed over the mail that encased the seemingly endless hard muscle on her familiar's body. Oddly, he didn't look quite so old, now.

Old Osmond blinked and Colbert's jaw dropped.

"Goodness," said the headmaster.

That was all that he could say, honestly.

**~A~**

Jebus. As you can plainly see, I went overboard with the detail here.

Gawd, I mean this thing's twice as long as the last two put together! With notes and omakes!

I checked the wordcount on this sucker and it comes out to something like 10,000 words. Be happy. Be very fucking happy. Or else.

That said, I'm thinking I can definitely manage another chapter. I just hope I'm not gonna be gassed out at the end of writing these end notes and the two omakes.

Yes, you little bastards, you're getting two omakes in place of a psychotic rant. Having been following the series on the Beta of Diablo III, I am validly and significantly pissed. Adria's new voice actress sucks. I'm leaving it at that, lest I ramble on that then get to serious fucking points about the fuckups with the ingame lore.

First up is something that I'd intended to have as the original beginning, but it just didn't jive with the overall spirit of the fic. It was pretty silly and listlike, and while the current opening for the third chapter is pretty fluffy and full of awesomely endearing moments (hopefully endearing, that is).

Omake One, Go!:

The sun dawned on the horizon of the Tristain Academy of Magic's grounds. The birds, the squirrels, and other such small creatures were already wide awake and going about their business.

Inside the academy, the servants had already been about their business two hours prior, seeing to the dusting of the opulent furnishings of the main hall and dining room, the sweeping and mopping of the currently empty classrooms, trimming the topiary, edging off the errant bits of ivory and grass creeping over walkways and buildings, weeding the flower beds, tending to the aviary and the stables-

-and, most importantly, preparing the extensive morning feast for the young masters.

Aside from the servants, there was one other up and about at that extreme hour; a kindly gentleman had made himself known, taking care of the more troublesome tasks for the indentured help. He'd rethatched the second tool shed's roof, helped pile the firewood, took care of some stubborn faggots that were slipping through a crack in a window sill on the West Wing of the academic estate, calmed the aggressive roan in the stables enough to get a feedbag over her head, fed the fire-breathing ducks, and carried a fresh barrel of cider up from the deep cellar. The servants marveled at a stranger lending a helping hand with what was usually unmentionable gruntwork that nobody who wasn't a servant did. It was dull (or life-threatening, in the case of the ducks), painstaking work that had to be done over and over again. However, the stranger insisted on doing these things and seemed to enjoy doing them. He did a damn good job at everything, too.

Shame about his back, though.

**~O~**

Siesta was busy dusting the pictures behind a long side table. What made it frustrating was that the table was rather wide and to dust the frames of the paintings she had to bend pretty far forward. This was frustrating in that she couldn't reach as far up the frames and her rear was thrust out pretty far, something that the servant boys and even some of the rowdier nobles took advantage of.

"May I help you with that, miss?" came a genial voice behind her. The young maid turned to see a hunched over old man who stood just below eye level.

"That table looks to be troublesome. May I move it for you?" The man said, grey eyes seeming to glimmer in the early morning light.

"Uh~ um~…"

"Don't mind me, I'll take care of it without asking favors." The bunch back'd man approached the middle of the side table, slipping his arms out from under his cloak under the table."

"Um! Let me get some of the boys to help you with-"

"Oh, no need for that, lass," the old man kindly interrupted. Without so much as a noise or strain, he lifted the table, vases and candles and all, well off the floor.

"Sir! Please don't hurt yourself trying to help me-"

"What are you talking about," the man said again, "this is easy!"

"Pretty light for a decent table, though," he commented.

Siesta didn't want to believe the old man, feeling that he'd collapse any second, sending the table and its priceless contents to break upon the floor. Looking at him as he held it, though, the odd man seemed to be perfectly content to stand there holding the whole thing. From the shoulders up (he was hunched over, after all), it seemed like he was not even holding something.

The maid had the sneaking suspicion that the man could hold the table longer than all the boys could gathered around the thing, lifting at once. Not that she'd test that, of course.

"Go ahead, dust as you like. I'll be here until breakfast time, so don't feel that you need to rush."

Siesta quickly obliged, setting to work at a concentrated, brisk pace that soon had the pictures behind the table well-dusted. The man put the table back without haste, the table making more noise than he did as it groaned from being placed back on its feet. The maid noted how none of the ornamentation seemed out of place, either, which usually came from lifting a covered surface.

"Now on to the other paintings behind furniture," the old man said, chuckling.

"No, you don't need to, sir," Siesta protested, "you don't need to do this at your age"

"Nonsense," the man said, grinning, "Back in my day, things were build to last."

He chuckled again, adding "Including me. Now let's see about those pesky tables."

Without further ado, Siesta was off, her newfound companion trailing behind a few paces, but keeping up nonetheless. In short order, the dusting work found itself completed to the Academy's standard and with time to spare.

The maid turned to face her strange helper "Thank you, Mister…"

"Ludoviccus Rheamosgh the third. But call me Ludo; everyone does."

"Mister Ludo… your help was much appreciated."

"Speaking of appreciation," the white haired man said, yawning, "I'll appreciate getting some shuteye before my mistress-"

He stretched upward, back popping like rattles down a waterfall, up to an unexpected height. Siesta gaped at the new size of her mysterious savior.

Ludo noticed the girl's look, and how she seemed to be further away from her than he thought. He then realized that he'd relapsed to his actual posture from having to hold himself in several set positions for minutes at a time. Still, he could work with this.

"Now, Miss-"

"Siesta, sir," the maid interjected, still staring at awe at the rather large man in front of her.

"-Siesta," he acknowledged, "I'd like it if you didn't tell everyone about this. Particularly my mistress. For now."

He bent down to her level, eyes glimmering cheerfully as he smiled a small smile. "This will be our little secret."

Ludo winked, then readjusting his posture to his hunched one, waving goodbye and heading into the hall, where he was greeted by someone Siesta couldn't see.

"Ah, Mister Colbert, what a pleasant surprise!"

"Greeting, Ludoviccus. Er, could I see your hand again?"

"Certainly, certainly," Ludo replied to his unknown companion, their voices getting further and further away.

Siesta stood there, still mulling over her time with the odd man named Ludo. In retrospect, she found that his face wasn't nearly as old as his aged persona implied.

And he was so kind… and strong. Siesta's heart fluttered faintly, a blush creeping up her cheeks.

She wondered if she'd ever see that man again, especially as his real self…

If only she knew what would happen that afternoon…

Omake One, Finish!

Alrighty, that's a-one. Now fer a-two.

A brief side note: anyone notice how Siesta immediately takes to Saito? Just being nice to her on a personal level seems to set her on a course for forbidden romance with a familiar, don't you think?

If Saito wasn't such a lunkheaded dipshit, he'd be actually getting something on all fronts. And he only goes after Louise seriously.

Not for any moral reasons, but just because he's a little bitch and that she's cute.

Seriously, what the fuck, man? GAWD.

Omake Dos! Commence!:

Longueville shuddered.

She couldn't forget those piercing grey eyes that seemed to linger and simmer in her mind's eye.

The secretary breathed in sharply, remembering his cold, slick voice as it wound through the air into her ear, thrusting into her very core.

She quaked, remembering the force with which the unnamed man had closed the door. What would ever happen if she was ever vulnerable to such a powerful arms.

Oh, Brimir, those EYES!

Longueville came hard, her burning core pumping her slick juices out so fast that she spurted through her fingers onto the floor of her small room near the headmaster's office

She fell backwards onto the felt carpet, shuddering in the aftershocks of her experience.

After being nearly discovered by this new presence, she had fled back to her room to avoid discovery. _Discovery for what?_ a small voice in the back of her head pondered.

Honestly, she didn't quite know. However, those grey eyes boring into her had touched something deep inside her that she'd never known before. Something primal.

By the Founder, she needed to get laid.

Omake Dos! Terminated!

Yeah~

How many of you actually saw this coming (hurr). I know I did.

Quite frankly, Longueville is a character who strikes me as seriously sexually repressed- okay, hear me out, okay? I'm not currently high right at the moment I'm writing this.

She's uptight, emotionally repressed, and a loner in the world. This façade isn't for political reasons or interpersonal reasons, merely because she's made herself like that because she seems to have turned herself into an island (If someone quotes that damn poem, I'll either give him a cookie for being culturally apt or club them over the head for missing the point).

In order to deal with this, she most likely developed her bombastic alter-ego (whom I will not spoil for those coming from the Diablo side of things or those reading thing whilst still getting through the beginning of the manga/anime), who basically does and says things completely opposed to how Longueville usually acts. The whole "woman uncaged with an axe to grind" thing is a pretty old schtick, as far as it goes, but it's still pretty valid if you can work it right(you get bonus points if you can apply observations ala Freud if you can avoid sounding like some pothead sophist).

So yeah.

Okay, on the topic of this story, I see that I've already gotten a semi-decent following for this fic. I'm glad that you guys like it so far. Hopefully this chapter won't drive you to undo your Alerts for this story and wipe your hard drive to remove the taint of evil from your computer.

Anyways, I'll be still going by the manga, although I'll be slipping in some harmless bits from the anime (like the fatass, if you noticed him). I will not work off the colors of the anime, however, because that's just plain cheating. Instead, I'll try to apply as many of the color illustrations from the manga's special bits and covers to work out the whole coloring dynamic.

Speaking of which, I wonder if you've noticed I've avoided referring to most of the characters by their hair color (mostly). I think the hair color referral thing is amateurish and positively retarded in the ways of logic, and thusly I'm finding different ways to refer to these people. I will avoid hair-color-referrals for as long as possible, perhaps even hair style referrals as well. I dunno if the whole balding/beardy/hairy thing will be done away with, so that's pretty up in the air.

Another point I have to get to is that I'm not going to revise these chapters on FF. It's not that it's particularly hard so much as it's a legacy that I will not change. I'm not gonna hide my boo-boos in previous chapters (I've made some pretty agonizing ones, too), but I'm going to be much more careful in future writings, going and reading over the chapter to make sure that there's no crap sentences, no aimless rambling (that isn't used to comedic effect), no obnoxiously misspelled/omitted/misused words, no awkward dialogues or OOC crap (even I can be guilty of that).

And that concludes my seriousness for this chapter.

There are several cultural references, pop-, sub-, and otherwise, in this chapter, including a salvo of references to Young Frankenstein, the only Mel Brooks movie I haven't watched in tidbits on YouTube. I'll be rectifying that shortly with my BluRay of Blazing Saddles, so watch out.

For those who missed the in-your-face Igorness, shame on you, sir, shame on you.

I'd like it if you'd tell me if you got the references or not in your reviews. It'd be much appreciated to know that people actually care about my feverish laboring to inject some culture into the weeaboo masses' collective brain. Perhaps the overall IQ will rise for getting acquainted with some bona fide Jewish humor. Seriously, that stuff's just different from regular humor. Like fresh squeezed orange juice and the concentrated stuff, only in this case the stuff "from concentrate" won't make you gag.

Speaking of reviews **GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS!**

**THAT'S RIGHT BITCHES!**

**NOW GRIND YOUR PELVIS INTO THE KEYBOARD AND PUMP! PUMP! PUMP! OUT THOSE REVIEWS**

**I WANNA SEE A SEA OF FEEDBACK IF YOU PEOPLE EVER WANT TO HAVE THE NEXT CHAPTER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY**

**ANONYMOUS REVIEWERS ARE STILL WELCOME TO PUT IN THEIR TWO CENTS WITH AN AMUSING TITLE OF THEIR OWN CHOICE AS THEIR "NAME" **I would like to see you guys review with actual accounts so I don't humiliate you all by replying via the next update **BUT STILL!**

**AND I KNOW THERE ARE A COUPLE HUNDRED OF YOU BUGGERS READING THIS THROUGH BECAUSE I CHECKED THE DAMN STATS AND I'VE GOT PEOPLE LOOKING AT THIS ALL THE WAY FROM OBSCURE PLACES OF THE GLOBE LIKE KOREA AND CANADA AND SOME PLACE THAT BEGINS WITH A "B" THAT I CAN'T REMEMBER HOW TO SPELL BUT SOUNDS REALLY AWESOME**

**I'VE EVEN GOT SOME READERS IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES! OMFG WHAT'S GOING ON?**

**BUT GET YOUR BITCH ASS OVER TO DAT KEYBOARD AND TYPE OUT A FROTHING FAN MISSIVE TO GET ME TO CARE TO GIVE YOU THE NEXT CHAPTER BEFORE CHRISTMAS NEXT YEAR**


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